April 15, 2013 - 17:01 AMT
Israel’s high-tech industry pioneer Efraim “Efi” Arazi dies at 76

Efraim “Efi” Arazi, a pioneer of Israel’s powerful high-tech industry who helped develop technology that allowed for a video recording of the first moon landing, has died. He was 76, The Associated Press reports.

Arazi founded three groundbreaking high-tech firms, Scitex, Electronics for Imaging, and iMedia, each specializing in aspects of digital photography or video.

Although Arazi did not complete high school, he was accepted into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as an “extraordinary case,” said Nehemia Shtrasler, an economics commentator who knew him.

Arazi petitioned NASA for funds to develop a camera that was used to broadcast Neil Armstrong’s steps on the moon in July 1969, he said.