Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone in April 1973
Cooper grew up in Chicago and earned a degree in electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After four years in the navy serving on destroyers and a submarine, he worked for a year at a telecommunications company.
Hired by Motorola in 1954, Mr. Cooper worked on developing portable products, including the first portable handheld police radios, made for the Chicago police department in 1967. He then led Motorola's cellular research.
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http://www.engology.com/eng5cooper.htm
Dr. Martin Cooper story is truly an inspirational one, especially for all future scientist, entrepreneurs, and innovators.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois on December 26, 1928, and earned his Bachelors and Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1950 and 1957 respectively. Martin Cooper, prior to his employment with Motorola in 1954, served in the Navy for 4 years, working on destroyers, and on submarines. He had also worked for a short time with another telecommunications company, before his historic association with Motorola.
In the early years at Motorola, he worked on portable products, including hand radios, made for the Chicago Police Department in 1967. Shortly after this project, he began working on Motorola's Cellular Research project, and developed the 3lb prototype from his base in Washington. Working in consultation with FCC, and against AT&T competition, he decided to come to New York to promote the technology. Martin Cooper was on his way to the press conference, when he decided to make a trial call. He made the first wireless call to his rival Dr. Joe Engel, the Research Director at AT&T Bell's Lab on April 13, 1973. That call was to change the communication world forever, as he was able to tap into people's need to freely talk to each other. He believed the consumer freedom to talk was inhibited by the copper wire of the land line telephone, and by researching and developing the use of the wireless phone, there would be an unleashing of those strong communication desires.
The mobile phone invention propelled his co-founding and managing of ArrayCom, a company that uses core adaptive antenna technology, to increase the capacity and coverage of cellular systems, while lowering the cost and improving speech reliability. This company, under Dr.Cooper's leadership, also used the technology to make the Internet more personal, by using the I-Burst personal Broadband system to deliver high speed, and mobile access, at economical prices to consumers.
It took 17 years, from the initial phone call by Dr. Martin Cooper in 1973, for the mobile communication concept to be fully developed and marketed to the world, but today, there are more subscribers to mobile phones, than landlines all over the world, and the number is growing. The communication breakthrough of Martin Cooper did not go unnoticed, as he was awarded the Wharton Infosys Business Award in 1995, for his technological innovations in the communications field; a truly prestigious recognition from a reputable institution.
http://www.helium.com/items/1235159-martin-cooper-mobile-phone-inventions-whartonmotorola-attwireless-technology-innovatators
Dr.Cooper is the inventor named on US patent 3906166 "Radio telephone system" filed on October 17, 1973. He is considered the inventor of the first portable handset and the first person to make a call on a portable cell phone on April 3, 1973, to the bewilderment of passers-by in a New York City street. That first call, placed to his rival Joel Engel, Bell Labs' head of research, caused a fundamental technology and communications market shift toward the person and away from the place. It was the incarnation of his vision for personal wireless communications, distinct from cellular car phones. Dr. Cooper later revealed that watching Captain Kirk talking in his communicator on the tv show Star Trek inspired him to research the mobile phone.