He was a distinguished guest speaker from Israel at a very prestigious gathering in Monaco of more than 1,000 of the top IT security experts in France. The annual Conference on Security and Information Systems runs three days in a luxury hotel setting with numerous workshops, but with few participants from outside France and none from beyond European borders.
This year, the subject of one of the workshops was the convergence between IT security and nanotechnology. One of the speakers was the VP of R&D of Cima NanoTech, Inc., Dr. Fernando de la Vega, also the chairman of NFM, the Magnet Consortium for Nanotechnology in Israel.
Dr. De la Vega explained to workshop participants that nanotechnologies and materials have features that are beginning to be exploited in the IT security field.
“Using smaller devices, it is possible to improve the performance of hardware and to increase the computational power of computers, thus enabling more complex IT security protocols and approaches,” de la Vega said. “The non-linear properties of materials offer new approaches to IT security, for example, non-linear properties of light in light-driven data.”
He believes that according to research being done in Israel and elsewhere, “data transferring by light and no longer by electricity could be something we see next year, in 2009 or 2010.”
This is a revolutionary concept, and not easy to understand. In a separate interview, he tried again to explain to a non-engineer. “Take an ordinary piece of metal, a piece of steel, for example” he began. “Light does not pass through it, but when the metal matter is below 50 nanometers, it does allow for light to pass through.”
He added that this non-linear behavior is called the “nano-effect”, but there is more. “The real key is the interdisciplinary use of the technology,” de la Vega said. “That is what will create a real buzz over nanotechnology, what will bring institutional and private investors running to participate. Without the wide approach and teamwork, the buzz will not happen.”
“Printed electronics allows for new and more cost effective generations of sensors, making them more available on the market,” he added. “That will bring tremendous change to IT security, creating devices and systems with great commercial value.”
He noted that there are no fewer that 240 nanotechnology research groups and 40 start-up companies in Israel. The NFM consortium consists of 13 companies and 12 academic research groups. NFM has been the seed for another consortium, NES, still in the formation stage. It will develop generic technologies based on carbon nano tubes, broadening the Israeli foothold in the field.
“The field is well-developed in Israel,” he said. “Nanotechnology is a natural enabler for Israel, because of its small size, meaning more efficient use of funds, fewer commercial obstacles and rapid prototyping and testing. And I believe that this will bring European hardware and equipment manufacturers to Israel.”
Dr. de la Vega went on to describe Cima NanoTech as the world leader in nano metal technologies, with headquarters in the US, an R&D, production and logistics center in Israel, and production facilities and a marketing joint venture in Japan.
Another speaker at the nanotech workshop was Dominique Bourra, CEO of NanoJV, specializing in joint ventures between the French and Israeli IT worlds, notably in the security field. In fact, Bourra was responsible for bringing de la Vega from Israel to speak in Monaco.
“Currently there are only 600 nanotech products on the world market, mostly in the cosmetics field,” he told participants, “but I believe the market will explode in the next ten years and will be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.”
Bourra said that for investors, nanotechnology is not yet easily identifiable like biotech products and services. “Nanotechnology is even less easy to grasp than biotechnology,” he said with a smile. “But for insiders, the technology behind miniaturization of sensors, implants of smart devices, printed electronics and Quantum computers is very exciting.”
He added that the subject will be discussed at the upcoming IT security forum in Paris on November 17, noting that in spite of the current financial crisis, 27 cutting-edge security companies from Israel have already signed on, 30% more than at last year’s forum.
“We have always been bridge-builders,” he said. “But now it is about being interdisciplinary trend-trackers. That is a mouthful. How about that for a buzz.”
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on October 30, 2008
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2008