Martin Cooper (not that one, a different one)

Martin Cooper is known as the father of the cellular phone. His work in the mobile industry gave birth to the movement that led to what we know as cell phones. Without him, the iPhones and Androids would not exist, and the world would not be as connected as it is today. Cooper is an inventor and engineer who worked in the nascent field of mobile phones several decades ago. He is still alive at 89 years old and remains a legend in the field of mobile electronics.

Cooper was born in 1928 and grew up amidst the Great Depression. His parents were immigrants, and they had meager incomes and experienced difficulty adjusting to life in America. However, they wanted their children to succeed, and as a result, much emphasis was put on education. Young Cooper was very bright and curious, with a predisposition towards science and the understanding of how things work. His fascination with science and math led him to attend the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a degree in engineering. To afford his education Cooper had to join the Reserve Officer Training Corps, and because of this he served in the Korean War. He served in the Navy, and later joined a submarine crew only to retire 3 years later. It was after the war that Cooper did most of his work in the field that he is famous for. After leaving the Navy, Cooper joined AT&T, the sole giant in the field of communications at the time. AT&T had, at that point, already introduced the idea of cellular phones, however, these phones required heavy batteries and so could only function in cars. Because of this, they were not truly mobile, and the methods by which they connected people were inefficient and slow.

Cooper left AT&T over disagreements over the cellular phone as well as with their company philosophy. He would go on to work at Motorola, a smaller and more relaxed competitor to the communications giant. After some time, AT&T proposed a system of communication based on the car phone, and requested the FTC give them a full monopoly over the channels in the US. Cooper and Motorola objected, understanding that the move would kill them and also that the future was not in car phones, but in hand-held cellular phones. Cooper convinced Motorola that such a venture was worth the investment, and so the whole company focused on developing this device in order to beat AT&T. They eventually succeeded, creating a large, heavy box that could perform basic functions such as calling and answering. This was the world’s first mobile phone, and in a act of gloating, Cooper used the phone to call his competitors at AT&T and announce Motorola’s victory. That was the first mobile phone call in history, and at the moment Martin Cooper had sealed himself in history as the father of the cellular phone.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Martin-Cooper

http://simplyknowledge.com/popular/biography/martin-cooper
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