CTech's Wednesday Roundup of Israeli Tech News

Israel’s performance drops in the OECD’s PISA student assessment tests. Israeli pupils are still underperforming compared to the OECD average. Experts attribute the failure to the country’s outdated education system and the lack of quality personnel, and warn that it is only going to get worse. Read more

Israel hands over $115 million for Innovation Authority grant payments. Israel's political limbo caused delays in the approval of the government budget, leading its tech investment arm to halt promised payments to local startup companies. Read more

Tel Aviv Skyline (illustration). Photo: Shutterstock

Less rain, higher temperatures: Israel’s gloomy forecast. Less rainfall, more hot days and nights, and rising sea levels are some of the risks the country will face by the end of the century, according to the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection. Read more

Sequoia Capital leads $65 million round for sales conversation analytics startup Gong. Gong develops speech recognition technology that provides sales representatives with real-time insights into their interactions with customers by analyzing recorded phone calls. Read more

List | From accessible travel to wearable computer mice: 8 startups helping people with disabilities. Around 14% of Israelis over the age of 20 have severe disabilities, making even the most trivial actions challenging. Listed below are Israeli startups aiming to make their lives just a little bit easier. Read more

Mobileye’s autonomous car readiness pilot in Barcelona bears fruit. The recent pilot, held in collaboration with the city and the Spanish Ministry of Transportation, is part of the country’s Autonomous Ready Spain project announced last year. Read more

Cybersecurity startup Panorays raises $15 million. Panorays offers a cybersecurity service that mimics the types of activities undertaken by hackers to provide a holistic view of possible third-party security issues. Read more