17 INFORMATION SECURITY Unbound Security Prof. Yehuda Lindell Don’t buy the argument that cryptocurrency’s the new gold? That’s alright: Coinbase bought it for you instead. In December, the American cryptocurrency-exchange platform bought Unbound Security, founded by Prof. Yehuda Lindell of Bar-Ilan’s Department of Computer Science and his partners. Unbound developed a unique infrastructure for managing and protecting cryptographic keys, vital to financial corporations and other institutions’ ability to store their digital currencies. Unbound’s technology is user friendly without compromising on high security, a feature that will come in handy as more people become crypto owners. Maybe even the skeptics, too? CLEAN ENERGY Phinergy Bar-Ilan President Prof. Arie Zaban What do you get when you combine aluminum with water and oxygen? If you’re Phinergy, the clean-energy startup founded by electrochemist Prof. Arie Zaban’s technology, you get a long-lasting, cost-effective electric-car battery. Zaban developed a means of using the energy within aluminum—an abundant and inexpensivemetal—efficiently, and after raising more than 200million NIS in its first IPO in February, Phinergy is set to use the resulting “metal-air” technology to take off— without any greenhouse-gas emissions at all. ROBOTICS BladeRanger Prof. Gal Kaminka In what’s certainly a case of cosmic irony, the parts of the world most ripe for solar power are the ones most full of dust—read: lost energy. Thanks to Prof. Gal Kaminka, head of the Department of Computer Science, however, you won’t need to climb up to your rooftops anytime soon: His AI-based technology for the autonomous cleaning and inspection of photovoltaic solar panels enables a battery-operated robot to do it—without water—instead. And now that his company, BladeRunner, is trading on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, his robots can map out panels, provide output on cleaning progress, and even serve as an IoT platform for improving solar-installation maintenance, all on a rooftop near you. HEALTH A.L. Group and Sonovia Prof. (Emeritus) Aharon Gedanken and Dr. Ilana Perelshtein We all knowwe should be washing our bed linens every week. But who has the energy to put that fitted sheet back on? Today, thanks to Prof. (Emeritus) Aharon Gedankin and Dr. Ilana Perelshtein’s pioneering work in sonochemistry, even the procrastinators among us can sleep easy—andmore important, clean: Sonovia, the company founded on Gedanken and Perelshtein’s technology for coating textiles with antimicrobial nanoparticles, manufactures of anti-bacterial fabrics for bed sheets, seat covers, and face masks that keeps them clean and hygienic even without frequent (or infrequent) washings. In addition, Gedanken and Perelshtein’s sonochemical coating provided the basis for an air-filtration system used in vehicles manufactured by Israel’s A.L. Group and licensed by BIRAD, BarIlan’s tech-transfer company. The air filters—already in use in all Magen David Adom ambulances—are designed to completely clear the atmosphere inside the vehicles of viruses and bacteria.
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