Kinneret Innovation Center- What’s new?

Promoting regional youth!

As part of the Planning and Budgeting Committee flagship Community Involvement program, Kinneret Academic College, in collaboration with the Kinneret Innovation Academy, have over the past year, enabled seventh- through tenth-grade students to become young entrepreneurs with the help of tools that encourage them to develop creative solutions to problems we experience on a daily basis. In 2020, the entrepreneurship program partnered with 13 schools, and awarded ten scholarships through the college.

As part of this project, ideas raised by the wonderful students:

• A smart mechanism for wrapping mail packages.
• An interactive trash can that encourages children to throw garbage into it.
• A device for integrating into the fruit and vegetable marketing chain, which shows the ripeness degree of ripeness for fruits and vegetables.
• A platform for ordering produce directly from the farmer that includes ratings, reviews, location, prices and more.
• An app that rewards those who collect garbage and takes selfies with shopping benefits in large chains.

Promoting regional industry!

In collaboration with Zemach Mifalim (Zemach Regional Industries) and Kinneret Academic College, an innovation event was created where entrepreneurs, industry, military, academia and the public gathered around one table to provide solutions that will transform industries in our area into greener industries. Six faculty members from the college participated as mentors, as well as a number of students who took an active part in the work teams, as well as in developing the event.

The company who finished in first place was ‘Zemach Feed Mill’. The team was able to find several methods for producing an edible coating for food, which would reduce erosion by about 50%. The concept is currently being piloted.

Providing opportunities for area entrepreneurs!

Over the past year, 104 startups applied, and 30 received support from the Kinneret Innovation Center. Two are student ventures and two others are ventures by college faculty researchers. With assistance from the ICA Foundation and Dudik Friedman Foundation, $190,000 were invested in nine of the ventures to ensure their growth, and thus the growth of the region as well.

Transforming the north – the establishment of a high-tech park – a magnet for science-based industry and projects from the area!

In June 2020, in a partnership between Kinneret Academic College, Zemach Mifalim (Zemach Regional Industries), and Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael KKL-JNF, and led by the Kinneret Innovation Center, the Innovation Park and Science Center cornerstone was laid. The center will enable entrepreneurs, students and researchers to train and find employment among approximately 10,000 technology and innovation-based positions. Expected to attract international investors and organizations, who will work to promote and develop the region, and to strengthen Israel’s position as a high-tech power.

As part of the Science Center, a set of science-based laboratories will be created for students, some of which have long been established within the walls of the Kinneret Academic College campus, and will move to their final home after construction of the new building. Among the laboratories that have already been established – hydrodynamics, water treatment and desalination, general and organic chemistry, microbiology, and sewage treatment.