Known widely as the Father of the Hand-Held Cellular Phone, American inventor, entrepreneur, and author Martin Cooper has revolutionized the telecommunications industry by inventing the portable cell phone. While he initially worked as a submarine officer in the US Navy and even served in the Korean War, Cooper later joined the telecommunications industry. He spent 29 years at Motorola, working on various projects, and even headed the R&D division as its director. Competing against AT&T, Cooper invented Motorola’s portable phone DynaTAC, improving on the car-phones of his era. It was launched in the market as the DynaTAC 8000x, the world’s first portable cell phone. He made the world’s first cell phone call to the head of AT&T’s rival project, Joel Engel. Cooper and his wife, Arlene Harris, later co-founded many companies, such as Dyna LLC. He has received many awards and honors, such as the Charles Stark Draper Prize for Engineering.
