Rescuers turn to Israeli tech to help save trapped Thai boys

Emergency mobile communications technology developed by Israeli company Maxtech Networks is being used by rescue teams working to save 12 teenagers and their 25-year-old coach who have been trapped for 11 days in a flooded cave in Thailand. The teenagers, a boys’ soccer team, went missing on June 23 after a soccer game when they visited a sprawling 10-kilometer-long cave system in the northern region of Chiang Rai, and became trapped by a flash flood.

Communications technology developed in Israel is being used by divers to help free 12 boys and their coach trapped for 11 days in a flooded Thai cave

Initial rescue attempts were hampered not only by the rising waters, but by lack of communication between first responders, as existing communication systems couldn’t work in the complexity of the underground caves. Uzi Hanuni, 51, the CEO of Maxtech, said the company’s agent in Thailand was first approached by Thai naval special forces shortly after the boys went missing. “From that point on everything was clear to us,” Hanuni told ISRAEL21c. “We knew that we would do whatever we could to save these boys.” On June 25, Maxtech software engineer Yuval Zalmanov hopped on a plane with 17 of the company’s emergency Max-Mesh radio units, to help train the first responders how to use the technology. The company sent everything without charge and Zalmanov was joined by Asaf Zmirly, an Israeli who owns a rescue company and lives in Thailand. Zalmanov is now embedded with the rescue team, which is made up of Thai special forces and international experts from the UK, China, Australia, and the US, and is expected to return home in a day or two. -- More...

ISRAEL21c——Bio and Archives

ISRAEL21c was founded in 2001, in the wake of the Second Intifada, to broaden public understanding of Israel beyond typical portrayals in the mainstream media.

The organization’s founders – Israeli-American technology executives – understood the great power of the Internet and developed a first-of-its kind online product with global appeal and reach.