WiTricity Corp
In 2005 Professor Marin Soljačić and his team at MIT developed the theory that you could transfer electricity over a distance. Later in 2007 they managed to turn theory in to reality by illuminating a light bulb over a 2-meter distance. With this began the development of the WiTricity technology.
WiTricity then made it’s first public appearance in July 2007 in the prestigious Science magazine. Later in 2008 Prof. Marin Soljačić’s work was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship and was recognised as one of the “Top Ten Emerging Technologies “by Technology Review. WiTricity was also hailed as one of the “Top 100 Science Stories of 2007” by Discover Magazine and mentioned as part of “The Year in Ideas – 2007” in The New York Times Magazine.
Over recent years WiTricity Corp has developed this technology to work over longer distances and in 2009 Eric Giler appeared on ideas broadcasting website TED to demonstrate the technology. In this demonstration Giler showed a TV and an iPhone powered wirelessly.
Recently in 2011 WiTricity was awarded additional funding as part of General Electric’s green energy program where they issued $63 million to 10 selected companies. In the following months WiTricity have licensed the technology to IHI, who are developing wireless car charging technologies for a selection of Japanese car manufacturers, and MediaTek, a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions.
As the exclusive licensee of this MIT intellectual property, WiTricity Corp continues to work with third parties to further develop the technology.
