World Economic Forum Picks Israel’s Takadu as one of its 2011 Technology Pioneers

The World Economic Forum in Dabos selected thirty-one companies from 13 countries and five continents to receive an award for visionary accomplishments in the fields of clean tech, health and information technologies/new media. The companies were selected by a committee of leading academics, journalists, technologists and venture capitalists from around the world.

This year’s winners included a higher number of clean tech companies, Amongst the 31 companies to receive the honor is Israeli startup Takadu, creator of a SaaS product for water distribution networks through the adoption of a grid approach.Takadu’s product enables utility companies to detect leaks, bursts and equipment failures as well as alerting personnel of any problems through email and SMS. Takadu’s business model consists of charging a monthly fee from its clients, which already include the Thames Water company and other utility companies in Israel and Asia Pacific. The company was founded in 2009 by Amir Peleg, a serial entrepreneur who previously founded Yadata (acquired by Microsoft in 2008), Unipier and EVS (went public in 1991) currently serves as CEO and its investors include Gemini Israel Funds and Giza Venture Capital.

Here’s the committee’s official nomination:

Why the company is a Technology Pioneer?

By combining smart IT and software-as-a-service, TaKaDu is radically improving the efficiency of water networks, significantly increasing the world’s water supply. It is also reducing energy consumption since water production and distribution require a lot of energy, so preventing water loss also prevents this waste.

Other winners on the list include check-in site FourSquare (see excellent WSJ article), mobile directory GetJar and the rest below.

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Read the winner’s profiles and download the full report at http://www.weforum.org/techpioneers.