Representatives of seven R&D centers in leading multinational companies, including Motorola, Microsoft, Marvell Technology Group (Nasdaq: MRVL), Deutsche Telekom, Citibank, Kodak, and GE will convene this week to cooperate in the development of new products, as part of the third Weekathon in three years in Israel.
The Israel Advanced Technology Industries (IATI), the forum of multinationals high tech and biomedical development centers in Israel, is organizing the event. Developers and engineers at the companies will work together in joint teams to develop innovative ideas that are likely to result in future cooperative efforts between them.
Each development center will send 3-5 senior programmers from the best minds in the industry. Completely setting aside their regular work, they will work in groups on ideas for various products. At the end of the week, the groups will present their developments at a festive event attended by leaders and representatives of the multinational companies.
The developments being worked on include a pilot-less helicopter to assist pursuit by the security forces that will be able to stay close to the target and report its location at all times; a mobile application for detecting proximate objects can display the particulars of an airplane, thereby giving a picture of the skies and preventing collisions between airplanes; a system designed for ambulances and emergency vans that can be synchronized with traffic lights, thereby facilitating continuous movement of emergency vehicles; and an online cellular system that can monitor significant functional data for ALS patients.
EMC Israel CEO Erez Tsur and Microsoft Israel R&D center general manager Yoram Yaacovi, the joint chairmen of IATI, said, "Israel has an enormous store of over 250 multinational development centers with innovation and capabilities at the highest level. We believe that cooperation between these centers in Israel can create the next big thing."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 24, 2015
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