BIRD Foundation

BIRD Foundation Fosters Partnerships Between Israeli Startups and Global Mining Industry

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The BIRD Foundation — the binational U.S.–Israel foundation for industrial R&D cooperation — is expanding its scope to include mining technologies, one of the least discussed yet fastest-growing segments of the global energy and industrial landscape. As part of this effort, the foundation recently hosted Mark Freeman, Managing Partner at the technology investment arm of Orion Resource Partners, for meetings in Israel with local entrepreneurs and startups.

The gathering, held at the foundation’s offices in Tel Aviv, was designed to expose Israeli startups to commercial and investment opportunities in the global mining industry, while exploring potential collaborations in advanced technologies for the extraction of critical minerals and metals. Representatives from venture capital funds and other players in Israel’s innovation ecosystem also took part.

Orion Resource Partners is among the world’s largest private investors in metals, mining, and raw materials. The group manages approximately $8.6 billion in assets and focuses on investments in critical minerals, industrial technologies, energy, and supply-chain innovation. Over the years, Orion has been involved in more than 80 mining operations worldwide, acting both as a financial investor and a strategic partner in large-scale industrial projects.

According to Limor Nakar-Vincent, Director of the BIRD Energy Program, the meeting reflects a broader structural shift. “The transition to clean energy, electric mobility, and advanced manufacturing depends on the availability of critical minerals — an issue that often remains outside the public conversation,” she said. “Without metals such as copper, cobalt, and graphite, the green transition simply cannot happen.”

The scale of the challenge facing the global mining industry continues to grow. Industry forecasts suggest that over the next three decades, the world will need to mine twice as much copper as has been extracted throughout all of human history to date. Demand for other minerals, including graphite and cobalt, is expected to rise between six-fold and thirty-fold, driven by battery technologies and energy storage systems. To keep pace, annual global investment in mining is projected to increase from roughly $45 billion today to about $75 billion by 2030.

At the same time, supply is struggling to catch up with demand. Success rates in mineral exploration using traditional methods are below one percent, while the average development timeline for a mine — from discovery to commercial production — stands at around 16 years. In parallel, ore quality is declining, and many countries are grappling with a shrinking number of active mines and increasingly stringent environmental regulations.

This reality underscores the need for technological innovation across the entire mining value chain — from subsurface exploration and characterization, through drilling and operations, to processing, refining, environmental management, and recycling. “This is a capital-intensive industry where mistakes can cost billions,” Nakar-Vincent noted. “Advanced technologies enable greater precision, shorter timelines, and reduced risk.”

In recent years, a dedicated entrepreneurial sector focused on advanced mining technologies has begun to take shape. It includes AI and deep-learning solutions for subsurface analysis, chemical and electrochemical processes for extracting metals from low-grade ores, direct lithium extraction technologies, and sensor systems that provide real-time operational data. Funding rounds totaling hundreds of millions of dollars signal that this is an emerging industry with significant long-term potential.

According to the foundation, Israel holds a clear comparative advantage in this arena. “Israel excels in platform technologies that are critical to modern mining — artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomy, cybersecurity, electrochemistry, and synthetic biology,” said Nakar-Vincent. “These capabilities can be directly applied to mineral exploration, operational optimization, ore processing, water treatment, and metal recycling.”

BIRD emphasizes that realizing this potential requires proactive connections between global mining corporations and the Israeli innovation ecosystem, exposure of entrepreneurs to real industrial needs, on-site pilot projects, and access to active mining facilities. “Innovation in mining is not only an industrial necessity — it is also an economic and national interest,” Nakar-Vincent concluded. “Countries and companies that develop advanced technological capabilities in critical minerals will strengthen their energy independence and their position in the global economy.”

[Ib the photo above: From right to left: Brian Rosen, Chief Scientist at Israel’s Ministry of Energy, Yael Herman (Ministry of Energy), Mark Freeman, Yaron Lotan, CEO of the BIRD Foundation, and Limor Nakar-Vincent, Director of the BIRD Energy Program]

AI-Powered Malaria Control: Diptera.ai Reaches Field-Validation Milestone

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[Photo: Dr. Eli Ordan and Dr. Ariel Livne, co-founders of Diptera.ai, alongside Dr. Filipos Papathanos of the Hebrew University. Courtesy of Diptera.ai]

Diptera.ai’s flagship project has reached a major breakthrough. After three years of intensive development—and in partnership with the BIRD Foundation, which supports industrial collaboration between Israel and the United States—the Israeli company has completed a full end-to-end system based on the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT), a biological method for mosquito control that relies on releasing sterilized males.

The project delivered a complete operational chain for Anopheles mosquitoes, including rearing, sorting, sterilization, marking, and AI-driven monitoring. The system was subsequently validated on live mosquito populations in Kenya and a second African country. With each technological milestone now achieved, Diptera.ai is preparing for the next step: widescale field trials across Sub-Saharan Africa.

The company was founded in response to the urgent global need to curb the spread of malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands each year. Traditional control methods are losing effectiveness, while SIT offers a clean, targeted alternative that avoids chemical pesticides. Historically, large-scale SIT deployment has been constrained by the inability to sort larvae at high throughput, the lack of reliable training data for AI models, and insufficient real-time monitoring tools.

Diptera.ai has now removed these bottlenecks. The company developed optical-imaging systems capable of detecting sex organs in larvae, a water-flow mechanism for processing large volumes, and a fully automated AI pipeline that generates high-quality labeled datasets without manual intervention. In partnership with U.S.-based Vectech, the team also created the Scout trap—equipped with UV illumination and machine-vision algorithms—to identify marked mosquitoes in the field and map population dynamics in real time.

During the project, the work expanded to additional major Anopheles species, including gambiae and coluzzii, significantly increasing market impact. All components—rearing, sorting, sterilization, and field hardware—were re-engineered, tested, and adapted to local conditions in semi-natural African facilities. Results demonstrate full technological readiness: near-perfect larval sex-sorting accuracy, 97% precision in detection models, and reliable field monitoring through the Scout platform.

Diptera.ai is now targeting initial deployments in multiple African countries, in collaboration with governments, researchers, and global health organizations. Beyond the technological achievement, the company views this milestone as a foundation for a systemic shift in how malaria is fought—moving mosquito control toward a fully automated, data-driven, AI-enabled discipline.

Dr. Eli Ordan, Diptera.ai co-founder, said:
“The support of the BIRD Foundation is instrumental in accelerating our joint effort with Vectech to combat the growing threat of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa. This cross-border collaboration allows us to merge advanced AI-driven monitoring with cutting-edge vector-control technologies, creating a scalable solution for malaria prevention. BIRD’s involvement is not only a vote of confidence in the urgency of the mission, but also a catalyst that helps transform scientific innovation into real-world impact.”

Omer Carmel, Director of Business Development at the BIRD Foundation, added:
“BIRD’s investment and guidance in this project highlight our commitment to breakthrough technologies capable of addressing critical global challenges such as malaria prevention. Working with Diptera.ai and Vectech enabled us to support AI-based solutions that deliver tangible results in the field, demonstrating BIRD’s role as a bridge for groundbreaking collaboration between Israeli and American companies.”

Israel-U.S. BIRD Foundation to Invest $5.5 Million in Five New Projects

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photo above: AccuBeat Rubidium Frequency Oscillators

The Board of Governors of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation approved grants totaling $5.5 million for five new projects between U.S. and Israeli companies. In addition to the grants from BIRD, the projects will leverage private-sector funding, resulting in a combined investment of $14 million across all projects. In addition to providing conditional grants of up to $1.5 million, the Foundation assists companies in identifying strategic partners and facilitating introductions.

The five newly approved projects bring the total number of BIRD-supported collaborations to over 1,100 during the Foundation’s 48 years of activity. To date, BIRD’s investment of more than $406 million in joint projects has helped generate direct and indirect revenues exceeding $10 billion.

The projects approved are: Accubeat (Jerusalem, Israel) and FieldLine Industries/Medical (Louisville, CO) to develop compact low-power, miniature atomic clocks and magnetometers using innovative quantum technology. An Israeli Company and Resolution Medical (Minneapolis, MN) to develop specialized catheters for the treatment of deep vein thrombosis. Mentaily Innovations (Or Yehuda, Israel) and the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine (Bethesda, MD) to advance an automated assessment to improve post-traumatic stress diagnosis (AI PTSD). Newton Tech (Tel Aviv, Israel) and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital (Boston, MA) to develop high-throughput gait and movement analysis for clinical evaluation. Tuned (Gan Yoshiya, Israel) and Novidan Inc. (Golden Valley, MN) to develop AI Audiologist Coupled with High-Performance, Low-Cost Hearing Aids.

BIRD Foundation to invest $8 million in 9 new projects

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During its meeting on December 13, 2021, held via video conference, the Board of Governors of the Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation approved $8 million in funding for nine new projects between U.S. and Israeli companies. In addition to the grants from BIRD, the projects will access private sector funding, boosting the total value of all projects to $22 million.

The BIRD Foundation promotes collaborations between U.S. and Israeli companies in various technological sectors for joint product development.  In addition to providing conditional grants of up to $1 million (up to $1.5m for exceptional projects), the Foundation assists by working with companies to identify potential strategic partners and facilitate introductions.

Projects submitted to the BIRD Foundation are reviewed by evaluators appointed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the Israel Innovation Authority.

The nine projects approved by the Board of Governors are in addition to the more than 1000 projects that the BIRD Foundation has approved for funding during its 44-year history. To date, BIRD’s total investment in joint projects is over $370 million, helping to generate direct and indirect sales of more than $10 billion.

The projects approved include:

  • Civan Lasers (Jerusalem, Israel) and AMET, Inc. (Rexburg, ID) to develop an Advanced Laser Welding System based on Dynamic Beam Laser.
  • TempraMed Israel (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Concept Group Corporation (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) to develop thermal insulation to shield the EpiPen Auto-Injector from exposure to high temperatures that can degrade the drug performance.
  • Cordio Medical (Or Yehuda, Israel) and International Healthcare (Norwalk, CT) to develop and validate the HearO® system that remotely monitors Congestive Heart Failure patients.
  • Mego Afek (Kibbutz Afek, Israel) and Edamame Health (Napa, CA) to develop a Lymphedema remote patient monitoring system.
  • Kav-Medida (Herzliya, Israel) and Skycatch (San Francisco, CA) to develop a high precision indoor scanning and analytics system to monitor progress in real time throughout all phases of construction.
  • Sixgill (Tel Aviv, Israel) and Basis Technology Corporation (Somerville, MA) to develop AI-based technologies, based on natural language processing, to identify emerging and imminent cyber threats.
  • Agridrones (Kfar Saba, Israel) and ISCA Technologies (Riverside, CA) to develop an intelligent drone-fitted precision dispersion system for natural pesticides and pollination enhancement products.
  • HIL Applied Medical Proton International (Jerusalem, Israel) and Proton International (Alpharetta, GA) to develop ultra-compact, affordable proton laser based beam therapy.
  • SirT6 (Ness Ziona, Israel) and Regulus Therapeutics (San Diego, CA) to develop an innovative treatment for geriatric frailty based on increasing SIRT6 protein levels.

Dr. Eitan Yudilevich, Executive Director of the BIRD Foundation [pictured above], said: “The selected projects include breakthrough innovations that will benefit from both the U.S.-Israel partnerships and the risk-sharing funding mechanism provided by the BIRD Foundation. The awards can be a significant factor for companies seeking to raise funding, especially in an environment in which investments are often focused on less risky sectors.”

The deadline for submission of Executive Summaries for the next BIRD cycle is March 1, 2022. Approval of projects will take place in June 2022.