Another success for Technion Alumni Association project “Technion for Life”

European Galileo project invests NIS 1.5 million in development of an atomic clock by Technion grads mentored by “Technion for Life”

The European Galileo project (the giant satellite navigation initiative) has invested NIS 1.5 million in Dimension4, a company managed by Dr. Lahav Gan, an MBA and Ph.D. Technion physics graduate, and Dr. Or Peleg, also a Ph.D. Technion physics graduate. The company is developing an atomic clock for the telecommunications and GPS market. Assisting Gan in the initiative were, among others, entrepreneurs Dan Wilensky and Ruven Agassi.

Dimenson4’s innovative technology is based on locking the clock’s frequency signal to atomic resonance in solid material, similar to what happens in a gas-based atomic clock. The use of solid material lessens the clock’s frequency precision relative to a gas-based atomic clock but, on the other hand, enables decreasing its price, size and power requirements dramatically. The clock Dimension4 is developing will replace the precision quartz clock. The development enables a more accurate, smaller, less expensive and greener clock (its power requirement is very low) relative to precision quartz clocks.

“Our vision is to install our clock in every GPS and cellular phone, thus enabling a significant improvement in performance,” says Dr. Lahav Gan, the company’s CEO.

Dimension4 recently took first place among competitors in Israel and sixth place in the European Satellite Navigation Competition. The European competition of the European GPS project Galileo is held annually in Munich, Germany. Invited to the prestigious competition are senior personnel from a broad spectrum of European companies and projects. The company team that went to the competition received large exposure to senior German industrialists.

Following their win in the competition, the company received a monetary grant of about NIS 1.5 million from Galileo. So far, Dimension4 has been self-financed and has set up one of the most advanced physics labs. The grant which it won will enable the company to develop its first product by the beginning of next year.

In the framework of the Technion Alumni Association’s “Technion for Life” project, which was set up through a donation by the Agassi family, entrepreneurs and Technion students receive mentoring, guidance and advice from experienced Technion graduates. “Technion for Life” is administered by Shira Zellner and operates in cooperation with the Bronica Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center at the Technion, headed by Prof. Uzi de-Haan.