Gonen Fink, CEO and co-founder of Pythagoras Solar aims to
combine existing solar technologies with innovations in optics,
semiconductor and mass manufacturing processes. Global warming,
and rapid industrialization coupled with dwindling finite
reservoirs of fossil fuel, are behind a worldwide drive to
develop renewable energy sources. Harnessing the sun – direct
conversion of sunlight to electricity using photovoltaic panels
– is one path. Pythagoras Solar, an Israel solar energy start-up
with R&D facilities in Tel Aviv and an office in San Mateo,
California, has just mobilized $10 million in venture capital to
take forward its concept of a stationary photovoltaic (PV) solar
panel that is designed “to change some of the ‘basic principles’
behind PV technology today” according to its developers. No idle
boast, but Pythagoras Solar’s team have an impressive track
record for successfully thinking out of the box: The CEO and co-
founder Gonen Fink served for 12 years as vice-president of R&D,
then vice-president