Current through the air: a method for wireless transmission of electricity was invented in Israel

Larisa Kazakevich

Breakthrough again. Jews again. Maybe, indeed, the Lord God himself helps them?

One of the main events at the recent CES-2018 international exhibition of new technologies in Las Vegas

was the presentation of the children's railway, created by the Israeli company Wi-Charge.

Toy trains briskly ran along the toy rails, either increasing or decreasing their speed. The trick was that the trains did not have any batteries: they received the electricity necessary for movement from a power source located at a distance of several tens of meters. So the Israelis decided to introduce the world to their new invention: the transmission of electricity wirelessly, literally through the air.

The story of the invention that Wi-Charge is now improving and that will eventually change our lives and basic ideas about electricity is a purely Israeli story.

When, in 2018, a quite successful businessman and inventor, the founder of the Memplite start-up company, 40-year-old Ortal Alpert, was vacationing abroad, his mobile phone suddenly ran out of power. The portable charger also died, and there was no socket to which he could connect.

And then Ortal Alpert thought how great it would be if it were possible to transmit electricity through the air - connect to a socket located a couple of kilometers away and borrow electricity from it.

Of course, such a fantasy has occurred to many before. But the professional physicist and chemist Ortal Alpert began to think about how to implement it, and soon patented the first idea of how electricity can be converted into electromagnetic waves, transmit these waves over a distance and then turn them back into electricity.

Of course, to bring the idea to mind, money was required, and a lot of it.

The problem was solved unexpectedly: soon Ortal got an investor - Victor Weisleib, who later became the CEO of a new company - Wi-Charge. Weisslab, by the way, is a fairly well-known personality in Israeli high-tech: a graduate of the Talpiot program, he was awarded an award for his contribution to Israel's security in 1999, and then created the startup Passave, which was acquired for $300 million.

Part of this money was invested in a new startup. Victor Weisleib, in turn, brought in as his deputy a former army comrade, Uri Mohr, also a recipient of an award for outstanding contribution to Israel's security.

Mor is younger than Weissleyb, stayed longer in the IDF, then actively promoted innovations in the work of social networks, and when he realized that he had reached a certain “ceiling”, he yearned for the “real business”.

And Weislabe captivated him by suggesting just that. To date, Wi-Charge has already patented 12 inventions, 13 more are in the process of patenting.

The problem of transmitting electricity through the air has been practically solved, which means that in the future, owners of mobile phones, tablets, laptops and other equipment will not need a recharging cord at all.

Well, then other electrical appliances will also begin to transfer to wireless electricity, so our great-grandchildren will almost certainly ask with surprise why wires were needed to transmit electricity at all.

And, by the way, the rejection of wires will save the world economy hundreds and hundreds of billions of shekels and dollars.

Once upon a time, Tesla was also able to transmit electricity through the air.