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New Israeli mobile app lets you order fresh fast food without getting on your computer or making a phone call

You may already be used to purchasing everything from shoes to concert tickets online. But how about a Big Mac? Or a futomaki rainbow roll from your favorite sushi joint? You don’t usually think about food you want fast and fresh when you surf the web. A small Israeli startup aims to change that.

Tapingo (www.tapingo.com) has built an online food ordering system for the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry platforms that integrates with a restaurant’s point of sales (POS) computer system.

The concept sounds simple enough, but purchasing static items (those that can be redeemed or shipped in a day or a week) is an entirely different ballgame from food, which must be prepared on a very tight timeline.

Tapingo is essentially making good on a promise for fast delivery that earlier dot.com startups like Kozmo failed at in the late 1990s. The difference, says Tapingo VP of marketing and business development Guy Bauman, is the proliferation of mobile devices.

Even if you’re sitting in front of your computer, you’re more likely to pick up your smartphone to make a food order, Bauman says. “eBay did two million transactions via mobile phone last year; Starbucks has done three million in just three months since it launched its mobile app.”

Working with the restaurants has been a bit trickier. When an order comes in to a Starbucks, employees don’t want to worry about whether that order was made in person, over the phone or via a mobile device. As long as the payment is processed properly, the Frappuccino with no-fat soy milk will be prepared in exactly the same way.

To achieve such seamlessness, Tapingo made deals with the POS providers – a market Bauman characterizes as very fragmented.

“There are many companies and no standards in terms of APIs [application programming interface] – how to integrate software from third parties” like Tapingo. Moreover, “business owners don’t want to install any new hardware,” Bauman continues.

Restaurateurs also don’t want to pay anything up front for a new, relatively untested service. Accordingly, Tapingo only takes a cut of the order – somewhere between 3.5-10 percent (Bauman wouldn’t be any more specific).

Tapingo is working with all four of the POS providers in Israel, where the app is currently in beta testing, and already with two of the key POS companies in the United States, where Bauman says his company will be making its first overseas push.

‘I’ll have the usual’

For visitors to Israel, Tapingo has an added advantage: The company’s staff translates every menu into English. One hundred restaurants are currently featured in the Tapingo Israeli app, mostly in the Tel Aviv-Ramat Gan area.

Bauman says that because Tapingo is a single app with many restaurants included, the iTunes advantage kicks in. Tapingo can take a diner’s credit card information just once, then allow the user to simply enter a password to pay.

Other familiar online tricks include remembering past orders (that tuna sandwich you always get for the Monday lunch meeting) and personalization (if you never order meat, maybe you’re a vegetarian, so the app will hide the meat options to keep away clutter).

Three-star Michelin restaurants need not worry that Tapingo aims to put their wait staff out of business. “Service and ambience are an integral part of that experience,” Bauman says. But when it comes to pizza or sushi take-away, streamlining the process is like “found money.”

Tapingo didn’t start out hungry for Chinese takeout. The company was founded by three guys. They built a “complete mobile commerce platform aimed at brick-and-mortar shops,” Bauman explains. But the initial vision was too broad and the focus soon narrowed to fast food -- for now, at least.

So, what are people ordering the most via Tapingo? Coffee, of course (“they can order it on their walk to the office or set up a standing order,” Bauman says), but also salads and noodles (“big with the student crowd”).

Tapingo has a staff of 15 and has been entirely self-funded to date, although the company is in the process of closing a first round of venture capital. Look for the service to launch in the US later this year.

Contact:

press@tapingo.com

By Ariel Blum

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Photo: Susan Harris, Tennis Australia

Noam Gershony, Israel’s leading wheelchair tennis player, who has rapidly made his mark on the International Tennis Federation’s Wheelchair division, with a current ranking of #3 in singles Quads for players with a high disability level and #10 in doubles, has just won the Men’s Quads singles at the 2012 GIO Sydney International Wheelchair Tennis Open.

In today’s final Gershony won in straight sets 6-4 6-3 over the #1 seed quads singles player John Wagner of the US. The semi-final match against #2 seed Peter Norfolk on Sunday was the first time Gershony dropped a set throughout the tournament.

Noam and his coach Nimrod Bichler now travel to Melbourne where Noam will compete in the Australian Open Wheelchair Championship from January 24 to 28 (draw to be available this week http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/scores/draws/cs/index.html)

The Israel Tennis Centre and Bichler say 28 year old Noam Gershony brings enormous pride to their country’s special needs tennis. In November last year, Noam achieved a historic result for Israeli wheelchair tennis by winning the Wheelchair Tennis Masters Quads singles. The tournament held in Belgium, was invitation-only with the participation of the top four ranked players in the world. The Israeli faced fierce competition in his matches and fought back from a set down to win the final. After winning the Masters, Noam earned 1,100 ranking points, the most a player can win on tour.

Ironically, Noam says, he took his first tennis lessons (five in total) prior to the helicopter crash which left him paralyzed in the 2006 Second Lebanon War, Israel’s defensive military action against the terror group Hezbollah. Gershony was serving as an Apache combat helicopter pilot in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and was the sole survivor of the air crash. After a long rehabilitation process, he began to play tennis and started training professionally.

Coach Nimrod Bichler has worked with wheelchair tennis players at Beit Halochem in Tel Aviv for the past 15 years. Beit Halochem also known as the Zahal Disabled Veterans Organization is the central point of care in the rehabilitation of disabled and injured Israel Defence Force (IDF) veterans, as well as Israelis disabled or severely injured by terror attacks, regardless of their religion. Beit Halochem has members who are Jewish, Druze, Moslem and Christian and runs activities that are held specifically with the participation of Arab Israelis.  

John Furstenberg, President of the Friends of Beit Halochem Victoria, said “Beit Halochem is a model of care for disabled servicemen, women and terror victims. After Israel’s Ministry of Defence has provided immediate medical treatment, Beit Halochem offers a process of rehabilitation for veterans to re-learn the skills required to return to a normal a life as possible. Often, as in the case of Noam Gershony and many others, they discover they can achieve success in areas not previously experienced, such as competitive sport, art or academia.”

“Beit Halochem takes a holistic approach to care” explains Furstenberg. “It’s 50,000 members across Israel include the veterans’ family members who are involved in every step of the rehabilitation process. This is knowledge that the Israeli organisation seeks to share, particularly at a time when thousands of Australian soldiers are returning home from conflict zones.”

Sam Tatarka, President of the Zionist Council of Victoria (ZCV) said “We congratulate Noam Gershony on his exciting win in Sydney. Noam is an inspiration; he has taken a life-altering experience and turned it into a triumph, for himself and his country. We are looking forward to watching him compete at the Australian Open in Melbourne and wish him the best of luck.”

Now with 49 career singles and 17 doubles for Quads, something tells us Noam Gershony’s opponents will need more luck. Noam’s goal to win points needed to compete at the 2012 London Paralympics appears to be right on course.

Noam Gershony will be in Sydney until Tuesday January 24 and in Melbourne from January 24 to January 28.

For interviews and related media coverage please send an SMS to Noam’s coach, Nimrod Bichler on Israeli mobile number 0011 972 52 327 2683.

For more information contact:
Jane Rapke - Executive Director, Zionist Council of Victoria 9272 5544
Elly Shalev – Director Public Affairs, Zionist Council of Victoria 9272 5519; 0400 313 197

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Eli Beer, founder of Hatzalah in Israel Download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=A683NWC4

At age 16, Eli Beer wanted to save lives. He came to Jerusalem one summer from America to volunteer with the Magen David Adom (MDA) (http://www.mdais.com), Israel’s version of the Red Cross.

On the job with the medics of Israel’s official emergency medical service, he noticed that in traffic-snarled Jerusalem, ambulances often lost precious minutes getting to crisis scenes.

So 20 years ago, when Beer moved to Israel, he took with him a localized first-responders model used in many US religious Jewish communities, and transferred it to his new Jerusalem neighborhood of Bayit V’gan.

When they receive a call for assistance, Hatzalah (Rescue) volunteer medics run on foot, or jump on Ambucycles, toting with them basics like an oxygen tank to be there in the crucial minutes before an ambulance arrives.

Today, United Hatzalah of Israel (http://www.unitedhatzalah.org/?CategoryID=165&ArticleID=305&Page=10) works in partnership with MDA, and some of the MDA staffers serve as Hatzalah volunteers. In this way, Beer has helped fill small but critical gaps in response time, since volunteers can race from the office, synagogue or mosque quickly.

The non-profit’s 1,600 volunteers include a cadre of 100 Israeli-Arabs, along with religious and secular Jews. Beer says it’s the only volunteer medical force of its kind to cross religious borders in such a way.

It took chutzpah

In the beginning, it took chutzpah to get off the ground, says Beer. Sometimes people who knew about their free service called them directly. But more often, he and his handful of volunteers, all religious Jews at the time, resorted to all kinds of “sneaky” tactics, including tapping into ambulance radio frequencies to know where the ambulances were being sent.

“We would respond and wait for the ambulance to arrive and in the meantime do triage, stabilization and CPR. And when the medics arrived we would hand them over.”

The MDA ambulance drivers were confused at first, but happy to have assistance. It took longer for Hatzalah to convince MDA to partner with it officially. The answer remained “no” until a new MDA chief executive not only agreed but signed on to be a Hatzalah volunteer himself.

Beer recalls the naysayers, who claimed that average people couldn’t be equipped to give medical care. “When someone’s yelling for help, it could be Superman or a volunteer who works in a butcher shop or a lawyer who runs out of his contract-signing. It doesn’t matter,” is what Beer told them.

Operating on a $4 million budget, United Hatzalah uses an Israeli-developed technology called the Life Compass to help them locate addresses with GPS, so medics riding their Ambucycles can respond within minutes to an emergency, even down the cobblestone alleyways of old Jerusalem.

They can stabilize a patient in shock due to blood loss, clear a blocked airway or administer oxygen before permanent brain damage sets in. Sometimes they do it in the middle of the night, still in pajamas.

And today, as the United Hatzalah movement has spread around the country, you’ll sometimes see Arabs treating Jews, and Jews treating Arabs.

‘We do it because we love it’

The idea to start bringing Arabs into the fold came when an Arab man in East Jerusalem watched his father die in his arms as they waited for an ambulance. The son wanted to see how lives could be saved in his community, which had no first-response medical teams.

He met with Beer, who immediately thought it would be a good idea. This has led to an unusual teaming of medic partners such as Fadi Bahir and Hezy Roth. Together they tour Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods as well as heavily Arab Abu Tor. When they get an emergency call, Hezy jumps out of his fish shop and Fadi leaves his work as a maintenance man at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem.

Video of Hezy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mj3_8K0pGw

On their specialized bikes they can ride through the old alleyways of Jerusalem that no ambulance can travel. They also enter Arab neighborhoods sometimes hostile to Jewish medical teams, without any fear. People from both sides call them “weirdos,” they say.

But the venture has strong support from Americans. For example, both Harvard attorney and human rights advocate Alan Dershowitz and a Muslim from New York sit on the United Hatzalah board of directors.

Saving each other

Beer recounts endless stories that show the human face and spirit of the nation of Israel, like the time an Arab Hatzalah medic rushed into a Jewish ritual bath (mikveh) to save a Jew suffering a heart attack. The people inside were wary of this Arab man attempting to enter a mikveh building. He quickly yelled the organization’s name, with a Yiddish accent, in order to be let in.

It goes in the other direction, too. On the night of Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for the Jews, Beer got a call that a man nearby was having a heart attack. Beer ran out of the synagogue with his prayer shawl flapping in the wind and jumped on his Ambucycle, normally forbidden to drive on Jewish holidays, and went to save the patient, who turned out to be an Arab.

Jews believe that saving a life is like saving a whole world. Beer says that he was happy he could perform this act on such a holy day: Arab or Jew, religious or secular -- it doesn’t matter.

“It’s a family, and we don’t care about politics,” says Beer, who has won an impressive number of prizes including one at the World Economic Forum in 2010 for his social entrepreneurship role.

“When it comes to saving lives or another person, we don’t look at nationality. We are not a government service and we don’t have to do it. We do it out of goodwill because we believe in it. We do it because we love it.”

CONTACTS

Eli Beer

972-52-3831231

By Rivka Borochov

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Prof. Mahmoud Huleihel and his research group believe they have achieved a breakthrough in male infertility. Download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=JCKMA4KI

Yet another Israeli breakthrough in reproductive health: Arab-Israeli researcher Prof. Mahmoud Huleihel from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University (http://in.bgu.ac.il/en/Pages/default.aspx) has pioneered an artificial testis, the sperm-producing “factory” of a male testicle. This advance offers new hope that infertile men could father their own children one day. It is also good news for boys who are undergoing chemotherapy.

Huleihel has pioneered this artificial testis in a Petri dish. Using a special chemical mix and a physical matrix, Huleihel’s team is able to take cells of unripe sperm and turn them into viable sperm. While the experiments were done on mice, in theory he hopes to make the procedure available to humans.

In scientific terms, the process involves the generation of spermatozoa from mouse testicular germ cells under in-vitro culture, as described recently in the Asian Journal of Andrology. This is the first time scientists anywhere have succeeded in growing live sperm from a germ cell in a test tube, says Huleihel.

“It is not the first experiment to grow sperm in culture,” he explains. “There was another research team that managed to produce an ‘organ culture’ from testicular tissue about six months ago.” However, this approach has a serious drawback in that it requires testicle tubules, basically parts of the existing testes.

Gives a future life to boys with cancer

The research paves the way for new experiments, now underway, on human sperm germ cells. The researchers are using donations from infertile male clients of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics.

They are also working with biopsy material from a pre-pubescent boy who underwent aggressive chemotherapy treatments, under the assumption that the cancer treatments could wipe out his chances of having children in the future.

Mature sperm are typically not produced until a boy reaches puberty, but with this technique, Huleihel hopes to develop a straightforward way to culture sperm from the unripe sperm cells for children undergoing cancer treatments.

“We’ve already got material from one testicle biopsy -- some [cells] from this child -- and have stored part of it for future use for preserving his fertility. And in another stage we have taken [cells] to the lab and are culturing these cells to reach the same effects as in the mouse.”

Of course, medical research is never a surefire guarantee of a commercial application, but the hope is that in five or 10 years, this new technique could benefit men being treated at infertility clinics around the world.

The university is currently looking into ways to commercialize the research. “We are working hard to reach this point,” says Huleihel, who pioneered the three-dimensional agar culture system called SACS.

A state of eggs and sperm

Male infertility is a growing concern in the modern and developed world, especially when not a single viable sperm is available to fertilize a partner’s egg in IVF procedures. Israel is a world leader in IVF, which is offered free under national health insurance plans for up to two pregnancies.

In men who have no ability to produce sperm whatsoever, or in pre-pubescent boys, there hasn’t been much hope until now for creating maturated sperm. Sperm banks can solve the problem of infertility in some couples, but men who want to sire their own children have no real options.

This new research joins a trend in Israel: A few years ago, Israeli researchers managed to produce viable and unripe oocytes from pre-pubescent girls who were undergoing aggressive radiation treatments so they could have kids of their own in the future.

Led by Prof. Dror Meirov from Tel Aviv University, Huleihel says he is also collaborating with this team, even though their approaches are very different. But this new advance in sperm shows how Israel is clearly leading the way in advancing fertility research for humankind.

“This study may open new therapeutic strategies for infertile men who cannot generate sperm and/or prepubertal cancer patients at risk of infertility due to aggressive chemo- or radiotherapy, and cannot cryopreserve sperm as in adult patients,” Huleihel concludes.

The study was done in cooperation with Prof. Eitan Lunenfeld, Soroka University Medical Center, Beersheva, and Prof. Stefan Schlatt, University of Münster, Münster, Germany.

CONTACTS

Mahmoud Huleihel

Cell: 052-2969182

Land: 08 6479959

huleihel@bgu.ac.il

By Rivka Borochov

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Mayor Barkat rappelling with Nati Gruber, a hand cyclist on Israel’s 2012 Paralympic team Photo by Yossi Zamir/Flash90 Download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=IHXXD2GV

Rappelling for hope down the walls of the Old City

Disabled athletes join Mayor Nir Barkat to rappel down Jerusalem's Old City walls during International Disability Awareness Month.

It’s not every day that you see people rappelling and omega-lining down the thick stone walls of Jerusalem’s Old City – and certainly not in wheelchairs. But to mark International Disability Awareness Month in December, ordinary folks with disabilities did exactly that, along with disabled athletes and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat.

The daredevil event was sponsored by Israel’s National Insurance Institute (NII) in partnership with Etgarim (Challenges) (http://www.etgarim.org/index.php?tlng=english), a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 by a group of disabled IDF veterans, disabled civilians and rehabilitation professionals.

Barkat’s rappelling buddy was Nati Gruber, 42, who represented Israel at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics in hand cycling and expects to compete in the London Games this summer.

“Every day, my goal is to bring to the public a realization that people who are different can be just like the person next door — or even better,” says Gruber.

Yossi Heyman, director general of the Jerusalem Municipality, said the unusual foray into “snappelling” (the Israeli term for rappelling) demonstrated “the triumph of the spirit over the body” and that “the impossible is indeed possible.”

Gruber says he’d never tried it before. Since he has partial use of his right leg, “it was a little difficult but not too much.”

He did not have to be persuaded to try. “I agreed right away because I believe in the cause,” he says. “The crowd was very excited to see all of us. It was a special event to highlight Jerusalem as a city accessible to the handicapped.”

Stated Barkat: “The city is constantly changing and growing, and the municipality feels committed to making the city’s buildings, gardens and streets accessible to its entire population so that all people can use and enjoy public property.”

Pushing the envelope of the possible

Under CEO Dafna Harary, Etgarim helps people with physical, sensory and mental disabilities to strengthen their self-confidence, maximize and realize their potential through challenging sports and outdoor activities. About 4,500 children and 700 adults participate in Etgarim activities at 240 venues throughout Israel.

About three years ago, Harary asked her former commander, Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, to chair Etgarim. “We believe we should give equal chances to everyone regardless of external problems, and we are working with the relevant ministries in Israel and with most of the municipalities,” says Halutz in a telephone interview.

“The event in Jerusalem was a kind of symbol, but of course it’s not only a symbol, that those people can do everything once you give them the chance. We thought that together with the mayor, who supports us very much, it would be very impressive to see these kids and teens and adults do snappelling and omega activities over the wall of Jaffa Gate.”

Halutz explains that omega involves sliding down a cable connected to high and low points such as trees, while holding two handles. “You can either hang by your arms or sit in a wheelchair,” he says.

“The idea is that Jerusalem is the center of everything, and accessibility to people with disabilities is very important so anyone can travel anywhere and do everything. It was a kind of a demonstration that nothing is beyond achievable.”

New initiatives for the disabled in Jerusalem

Halutz says the municipality and Education Ministry help Etgarim identify where its services are most needed. “We come with our instructors and equipment, not ad-hoc but fully coordinated with the annual educational syllabus,” he says.

“All these extreme sports are done outdoors. Besides snappelling and omega, we offer also sailing, biking, diving and parachuting. We are active all over the country, regardless of race, religion or gender – Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Druze. Unfortunately, we can’t cover everyone who needs us for budgetary reasons. But we do our best.”

NII director general Esther Dominissini, said: “Our aim is to create a genuine social change, leading to a situation in which disabled people become a part of society while focusing on the integration of disabled people in the fields of employment, education, sports and leisure activities.”

The NII, in collaboration with the Jerusalem Development Authority, has allocated NIS 5 million to make central sites in the Old City accessible to disabled people. Another NIS 3 million was allocated for the project in cooperation with the Jerusalem municipality.

Through its Fund for Development of Services for People with Disabilities (http://www.btl.gov.il/English%20Homepage/Funds%20and%20Community/The%20Fund%20for%20Development%20of%20Services%20for%20People%20with%20Disabilities/Pages/default.aspx), the NII also donated NIS 1 million to Etgarim to purchase adapted extreme sports equipment including a tandem bike designated for the blind, rappelling equipment and special wheelchairs for rugged terrain.

Contact:

Lior Ovadia (PR), luria.adi@gmail.com, Lior 050-535-3818, liorovadia@vmail.co.il

Nati Gruber: 052-829-3939

Dan Halutz: 054-336-3360, 03-644-5505, haloutz@zahav.net.il

By Avigayil Kadesh

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