Imagine having to re-program your smartphone, digital camera, music player, tablet computer, e-book reader, or similar device with phone numbers, photos, songs, or other crucial information every time you turned it on. Or think how much bigger its battery would be, and how often you would have to recharge it, if you decided to keep it powered up all the time so it would remember that data.

Fortunately, that’s one dilemma we don’t have to face. Our electronic devices keep all our information in memory, ready for use, even when we turn them off. They store the data in semiconductor chips called “flash memory,” either in the devices or on handy, removable memory cards and USB thumb drives. Their convenience and functionality are owing in large part to the flash memory innovations of Dr. Eli Harari.

Dr. Harari did not invent l ash memory. Credit for that goes to Toshiba , the giant Japanese electrical and electronics company, which developed the semiconductor chips in the mid-1980s. But he did i nd ways to improve their reliability. Even more important, he developed l ash memory systems. He developed and commercialized these systems through SanDisk , an amazingly successful startup, which he founded in 1988 in Silicon Valley.