Wireless charging from 30 feet away -- does startup have a game changer?

A startup Tuesday unveiled technology it claims can can simultaneously charge multiple different devices in a house, even through walls and around corners, by using the same radio spectrum as other wireless standards, such as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

"You don't have to put that device in every room. You just put it into one room in your house and it will power all your devices," said Hatem Zeine, founder of Ossia, developer of the technology. "It's like your Wi-Fi signal. If you can get a Wi-Fi signal, you'll be able to get power."

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After six years of development, Ossia today unwrapped the new Cota wireless charging technology that it says will be available to consumers and enterprises by 2015.

Zeine, demonstrated the technology with a prototype at the TechCrunch Disrupt technology conference in San Francisco this week.

In a video posted by TechCrunch, Zeine held a 2-inch by 2-inch by 1-inch cube-shaped dongle device, plugged it into an iPhone 5 via a standard charging cable and held it in the air until the device indicated it was wirelessly charging; the audience erupted in applause.

"For me, wireless means remote, automatic, effortless," Zeine told the audience.

The Cota wireless charging system includes a wireless charger and a wireless charger receiver -- either a dongle device or tech integrated into a product, such as a smartphone or battery. While it has yet to be miniaturized, Zeine said the wireless technology will eventually be small enough to fit onto the motherboard of a smart phone or even in a AAA battery.

Zeine said the wireless charging technology should appeal to enterprises, such as oil and gas companies, where removing power wires from equipment could lead to greater safety. "Imaging the impact of Cota on the medical, retail, and the hundreds of devices [that] we call the Internet of things. The possibilities are endless," he added.

The wireless charging technology can deliver 1 watt of power at a 30-foot distance. It would to span an entire home and could power multiple devices, Zeine said.

"Cota is inherently safe, as safe as your Wi-Fi hub," Zeine said. "A Cota-enabled device sends out a beacon signal that finds paths to the charger, which in turn returns the power signal through only those open paths back to the receiver, avoiding people or anything that absorbs its energy."

The Cota wireless charging does not depend on line of sight, that is, it can go through walls and around corners without interfering with other electronic equipment in its path, Zeine said.

According to Zeine, the Cota wireless charging technology was discovered by accident. While experimenting with wireless signal management, Zeine, a physicist, discovered that it's possible to focus a signal on a receiving device.

Zeine said his company currently holds four core patents issued by the U.S. patent office, as well as others issued internationally. He plans on licensing the technology to equipment makers. He said Ossia is already discussing the technology with some companies.

The Cota consumer transmitter would sell for around the same price as a Wi-Fi hub, "basically $100 or a little more", Zeine said.

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University of Maryland Technology Start-Up Boot Camp, Oct. 22; Morgan O'Brien, Co-Founder of Nextel Communications Inc. (now Sprint Nextel), to Keynote

Learn, be inspired and network at this intensive, one-day workshop about how to launch and grow new ventures, headlined by prominent leaders of this region’s entrepreneurial community. Hundreds of like-minded students, faculty, and professionals attend each year. The Boot Camp is FREE to University of Maryland students, faculty and staff. The cost is $75 for all others. Lunch is included.

Keynote Speaker: Morgan O'Brien, Co-Founder, Nextel Communications Inc. (now Sprint Nextel)

9:00 a.m.: Introduction

Dean Chang, Director, Mtech Venture Programs; Director, Technology Advancement Program, University of Maryland

9:05 a.m.: Welcome

Darryll Pines, Dean, A. James Clark School of Engineering, University of Maryland

Hugh G. Courtney, Vice Dean,
Professor of the Practice of Strategy, Robert H. Smith School of Business9:20 a.m.: Launch Zone: Why the University of Maryland is a Great Place to Create a Startup

9:20 a.m.: Undergraduate Student Perspective

Greg Waldstreicher, Co-Founder, DoseSpot, 2010 Entrepreneur Magazine College Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist, 2010 UMD $75K Business Plan Competition Winner

9:40 a.m.: Graduate Student Perspective

Matt Dowling, Co-Founder, Remedium Technologies, 2010 Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Global Venture Challenge Winner, 2009 Global Security Challenge Winner, 2007 UMD $50K Business Plan Competition Winner. Additional comments by Tim Askew, former CEO of CSA Medical

10:00 a.m.: Faculty Perspective

Carol Espy Wilson, Founder, OmniSpeech LLC, 2010 UMD $75K Business Plan Competition Winner, 2010 Maryland Daily Record Innovator of the Year. Addtitional comments by Morgan O'Brien, Co-Founder, Nextel Communications Inc. (now part of Sprint Nextel Corp.

11:30 a.m.: Keep the Wolves at Bay: Firming Up Your Intellectual Property Against Competition

11:50 a.m.: Company Formation, Operating Agreements, Employment Agreements, and Stock Plans

Samuel E. Feigin, Partner and Chair, Israel Business, Nixon Peabody LLP

Mark Kass, Partner and Chair, Israel Business, Nixon Peabody LLP

1:10 p.m.: Concurrent Sessions

Colony Ballroom
Startup Nuts & Bolts: The How To's of Incorporating, Stock Certificates, Taxes, & More

Benjamin Banneker Room
Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch

Juan Ramon Jiménez Room
Intellectual Property and Legal Questions and Answers

1:50 p.m.: Concurrent Sessions

Colony Ballroom
University IP Disclosures, Patents, and Licensing: What Every Researcher and Company Should Know

Gayatri Varma, Executive Director, University of Maryland Office of Technology Commercialization

Brent Goldfarb, Assistant Professor, Management & Entrepreneurship, Robert H. Smith School of Business

Benjamin Banneker Room
$500 Open Elevator Pitch Competition, Alla Corey, Program Manager, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Juan Ramon Jiménez Room
Intellectual Property and Legal Questions and Answers

2:50 p.m.: Concurrent Sessions

Colony Ballroom
Funding a Prototype: MIPS and the Maryland Proof-of-Concept Alliance Grants

Benjamin Banneker Room
Biotechnology Startup Workshop: Market Research, Grants, and Other Resources

3:20 p.m.: Concurrent Sessions

Colony Ballroom
Is Early Stage Investment Dead? New Rules, New Paradigms

Ed Barrientos, CEO, Brazen Careerist, Managing Partner, Zeitgeist Holdings, Visiting Angel, Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship

Craig Dye, Director, Mtech VentureAccelerator Program

Bob Proctor, Blu Venture Investors

Janet Yang, Principal, Novak Biddle Venture Partners

Benjamin Banneker Room
Open Questions and Answers for Biotechnology Startups

Register to attend from:
www.bootcamp.umd.edu

Friday, October 22, 2010
University of Maryland,
College Park

Sponsors

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University of Maryland’s Cupid’s Cup Business & Innovation Showcase Leads to $1.5M Investment for Local Startup

University of Maryland’s Cupid’s Cup Business & Innovation Showcase Leads to $1.5M Investment for Local Startup

l-r: Jerrold Prothero, CEO and founder of Astrapi Corporation;
Elana Fine, managing director of the Dingman Center;
and Bill Boyle, Dingman Center angel investor

College Park, Md. – July 1, 2013 – Astrapi Corporation, whose patented signal modulation technology will revolutionize the mobile communications industry, has closed a seed round totaling $1.5 million led by Dingman Center Angel investor, Bill Boyle. The funding will be used to develop a commercially viable product for deployment with initial customers.

Boyle recognized the disruptive technology through a chance meeting at the April 2013 University of Maryland’s Cupid’s Cup Business and Innovation Showcase hosted by the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business. The showcase featured campus and regional startups, including Astrapi, and was attended by the regional entrepreneurship and investor community.

“I was in the fiber services industry for the last 20 years and while walking around the Cupid’s Cup showcase I noticed a telecommunications startup,” said Boyle. “Astrapi claimed their technology could transmit dramatically more information than can be currently transmitted by using a different type of wireless signal based on spirals rather than the traditional circles. I was immediately drawn in and I quickly came to the conclusion that this technology is a game changer in an area that needs one.”

Astrapi’s spiral-based signal modulation improves spectral efficiency compared to the current industry standard by providing new ways to transmit information. These improvements alter how telecommunication networks send and receive signals, increasing the value of spectrum, and enabling operators to meet exploding demand more economically. The initial target markets are wireless mobile backhaul providers and satellite enterprise networks due to their constrained signal power, high data throughput requirements, and limited standards applicability.

On June 25, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued Astrapi’s first patent, entitled "Telecommunications signaling using nonlinear functions." The patent is credited to inventor, Jerrold Prothero, Ph.D., CEO and founder of Astrapi, and covers the broad concept of using complex spirals for signal modulation in telecommunications.

“Our technology is based on showing for the first time how to effectively use bandlimited, non-periodic waveforms as the basis of communication,” said Prothero. "This allows us to do things that were previously thought to be impossible, by extending the mathematics and engineering principles that underlie telecommunications.”

Connections like the one between Astrapi and Boyle are exactly what the Dingman Center hopes to achieve through Cupid’s Cup. This signature event is sponsored by Under Armour founder and CEO, Kevin Plank and has evolved from a campus competition awarding only UMD student startups to a national one. The national expansion has allowed the Dingman Center to increase the number exhibitors, which this year included Astrapi Corporation.

“The genesis of this deal illustrates the depth and breadth of our network,” said Elana Fine, managing director of the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship. “This connection between Bill Boyle and Astrapi is a perfect example of the Dingman community at work. Because of our expansion we are pulling in technologies and startups from across campus and throughout the region so I think we’ll continue to have success stories like this one.”

Boyle, a UMD alumnus, is founder and former president of Fibergate, a Washington, D.C. metro area provider of fiber-optic communication services. He is a member of the Dingman Center Angels, one of the area’s most active networks that connects startups seeking seed and early-stage funding with angel investors.

Boyle, and his fellow Astrapi investor, recently completed a successful exit from Fibergate and are both helping to guide Astrapi to a successful product launch. Currently, Astrapi is in commercialization talks with its first customer.

"We believe this technology will change the communications landscape forever and we look forward to its rapid deployment,” said Boyle.

Astrapi is a member of Mtech’s TAP Incubator located on the UMD campus. TAP offers furnished offices and flexible lab space as well as a multitude of other benefits and services.

About Astrapi Corporation
Astrapi is a spiral-based signal modulation company with patented IP. By applying new mathematics to signal modulation, Astrapi is able to improve the trade-off between the four fundamental parameters in telecommunication: bandwidth, signal power, data throughput, and error rate. Based on foundational work by its founder, Dr. Jerold Prothero, the company's patented Compound Channel Coding™ (cCc™) technology allows for dramatic improvements in communication performance by smoothly integrating periodic and exponential signal parameters. For network owners, operators and end-users, the resulting efficiency translates into higher spectral performance with more bits available at a lower cost.

About the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship
The Dingman Center is one of the nation’s pre-eminent institutions where the research, education and practice of entrepreneurship are pursued vigorously. We develop and execute curricular and non-curricular programs that uniquely leverage Smith School thought leadership, experiential learning and our network of practitioners to provide resources to startup businesses. Every initiative is designed to support the Center’s mission to build a community, operating from the Smith School that discovers, equips, connects and celebrates entrepreneurs.

About Mtech
The mission of Mtech is to educate the next generation of technology entrepreneurs, create successful technology ventures, and connect Maryland companies with university resources to help them succeed. Founded in 1983, Mtech has had a $29.4 billion impact on the Maryland economy and helped create or retain more than 7,800 jobs. Billion dollar companies such as Martek Biosciences and Digene Corporation graduated from our incubator. Mtech offers three experiential learning programs and 18 entrepreneurship and innovation courses, served to 1,003 enrollees in the academic year 2011-12, at the pre-college, undergraduate and graduate levels.

About the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business
The Robert H. Smith School of Business is an internationally recognized leader in management education and research. One of 12 colleges and schools at the University of Maryland, College Park, the Smith School offers undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBA, executive MBA, online MBA, MS in business, PhD and executive education programs, as well as outreach services to the corporate community. The school offers its degree, custom and certification programs in learning locations in North America and Asia.

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