Classroom lesson 路 Tech invented in Israel馃嚠馃嚤 Israel

Tech invented in Israel

The USB stick, instant messaging and cherry tomatoes all started here

A small USB memory stick

Photo 路 Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Israel is a small country - about the size of Wales - but it invents lots of useful things. Some of them you might use every week. The USB memory stick was invented in Israel. So was the first instant messaging app on the internet. Even the sweet little cherry tomato in your salad was developed by Israeli scientists.

Tell me more

The USB memory stick (also called a flash drive or thumb drive) was invented in 1999 by an Israeli company called M-Systems. Before that, people copied files between computers using big floppy disks that only held a tiny bit. Now we carry whole films in our pocket.

Instant messaging - typing little messages back and forth to friends in real time - was invented in 1996 by four Israeli teenagers. They called their app ICQ. The 'ping' sound when a message arrived was theirs too. Today's chat apps like WhatsApp are descendants of that idea.

The cherry tomato isn't a tech invention, but it is a science one. In the 1970s, Israeli scientists at the Hebrew University worked out how to grow tomatoes that were tiny, sweet, and didn't go squishy too fast. They are now sold all over the world.

Israel has a nickname: 'Start-Up Nation'. For its size, no other country starts as many new technology companies. Lots of the apps and gadgets we use every day - GPS apps, parts inside our phones, the technology in some heart monitors - were invented or improved in Israel.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

  1. 01Look around the classroom. Pick three things you use every day. Where do you think each one was invented?
  2. 02ICQ was made by teenagers. What do you think helps young people to invent things?
  3. 03If you could invent one small thing that would make your school day better, what would it be?
Try this

Classroom activity

Sketch your dream invention on paper. Give it a name and write one sentence on what it does. Pair up and explain it to a partner. As a class, vote on the one most likely to actually work.