President to give Waze driving tips to Independence Day revelers

To honor Israel’s 70th Independence Day, President Reuven Rivlin will be dishing out recorded navigation instructions to Israeli users of the driving application Waze. The file of guidelines with his voice will be available to users starting from April 19, and for just one week.

Rivlin recorded the instructions during a visit to the Israeli company’s Tel Aviv headquarters which has developed a GPS navigation software that works on smartphones and tablets and is used by some 100 million users globally to navigate to their destination and to bypass traffic jams.

During his visit, Rivlin met with Waze CEO Noam Bardin and with the firm’s employees.

“Every technological solution that helps Israeli citizens go out to the beautiful paths of our country and discover new, attractive places makes me happy,” said the president during his visit. “The most exciting projects in my eyes are those that bring together the groundbreaking Israeli innovation with our tiny country, where every story lies behind every path, and I hope that we will help citizens reach their independence day celebration events with joy and, more importantly, more cautiously.”

With its millions of users, Waze is a wildly popular app that provides directions, commuting times, and a social experience. Millions of drivers around the world rely on Waze for their daily commute. Using its crowdsourced traffic information, Waze recommends the most advantageous routes for drivers, steering them clear of major traffic tie-ups where possible.  The startup company was sold for some $1 billion to Google in 2013, and was Israel’s largest Internet exit at the time.