Ossia CEO Mario Obeidat. Photo via Ossia.

Ossia has hired a new leader as the Bellevue, Wash.-based company prepares to commercialize its wireless charging technology.

Long-time tech executive Mario Obeidat is Ossias new CEO. He takes over forDidier Le Lannic, who joined the company this past March but isstepping down to explore other opportunities closer to his home and family in San Francisco.

Obeidat was previously vice presidentof licensing at Pendrell Corporation and head of telecommunications licensing at Intellectual Ventures. Hes also served as an advisor to Ossia for the past six years and is now leading the company at a critical time.

Founded in 2008, Ossia has spent nearly a decade developing its Cota technology that can charge electronic devices wirelesslywithout wires or pads. The 40-person company has raised $50 million from investors like Intel Capital, KDDI, Molex, and others.

For me, leading Ossia is a natural extension of things Ive done over the past 20 years: Lead technology organizations on a commercialization path, Obeidat told GeekWire.

Obeidat said Ossia is ready to go to market. The company recently released a reference design kit for Cota, allowing other companies to build the wireless technology into their own products. It is also working withother household-name consumer electronic makers, as Obeidat noted, to license Cota into products like smartphones, IoT devices, wearables, and more.

Were talking about a year or so until you see devices that will have Cota technology in them, Obeidat said.

Ossia has appeared at events like the Consumer Electronics Show it was named a Best of Innovation Awards Honoree at CES last month to show how Cota can charge devices wirelessly up to 20 feet away, through walls and around objects. It does thisby sending out a low-power signal from a base transmitterto Cota-equipped devices.

Ossia is fundamentally transforming the way consumers will use power, Obeidat said. Consumers will no longer have to be stuck next to electrical outlets to power devices. Its a huge transformation.

Its been quite the journey for Ossia and its founder, Hatem Zeine, who started the company in 2008 and shifted from a CEO position to CTO last year. Zeine first showed GeekWire some of Ossias early prototypes in 2014.

I want my 3-year-old to grow up and neverknow about charging devices, Zeine said at the time.

Ossia is still going through the regulatory process to get its technology approved.

Cota is inherently a very safe technology, Obeidat said. Were confident well be able to pass all the regulatory requirements.

There are plenty of other companies like uBeamand Energous, for example also developing their own wireless charging technology. But competitors havent shown off their products like Ossia, Obeidat said.

No other company has done a public demo to show that they can power a device from 20 feet away, he noted.

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Ossia hires new CEO to help commercialize its wireless charging technology - GeekWire