Man behind Bose audio systems in Inventors' Hall of Fame
By Parveen Chopra, New York, March 13, 2008 (IANS)

Amar Bose, a pioneer in modern acoustics who is known for the high-end audio products bearing his name, has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in the US, which has previously honoured Thomas Edison, Graham Bell and the Wright Brothers. Born in the US to a Bengali father and a German mother, Bose's name is in the 2008 list of 18 inventors to be honoured, 11 of them posthumously, by the Ohio-based Hall of Fame in May.

The Hall of Fame was founded in 1973 by the US Patent and Trademark Office and the National Council of Intellectual Property Law Associations. The citation released last month for the 78-year-old, who founded the Bose Corporation in 1964, says: "Bose has introduced a variety of products through his company, including the 901 Direct/Reflecting speaker system, customised sound systems for automobiles, and active noise-reducing headphone." Bose, who holds over two dozen patents, has said: "Inventions come from people who are motivated or driven to make things better."

Raised in Philadelphia, Bose's passion for technology goes back to the time when at age 13 he started repairing radios during World War II. He earned his Bachelor, Master and Doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he was faculty from 1956 till 2001.

His research at MIT led to the development of new, patented technologies. With those patents, he founded Bose Corporation in Framingham, Massachusetts. The company's first product, designed to recreate the rich sounds of live musical performances, was the 901 speakers.

Bose Corporation, since acclaimed internationally for groundbreaking products, develops and manufactures audio equipment, including speakers, amplifiers, headphones and sound systems for luxury cars. With annual revenue close to $1.8 billion, the privately held company ploughs back part of the profits into advancement in non-audio areas such as research on cold fusion and developing automotive suspension systems.

The company employs nearly 8,000 people in its Framingham headquarters and elsewhere, and has over 150 stores of its own, including in India. "I am planning to build an alliance between Bose Corporation and another larger institution that will protect as much as possible the freedom and independence of the corporation to continue its scientific and technological innovation," Bose told an Indian ethnic paper in California.

Bose was also named Inventor of the Year in 1987 by the Intellectual Property Owners Association and elected last year to the Consumer Electronics Hall of Fame, a trade group in Virginia that promotes the $148 billion US consumer technology industry.

The only other Indian-origin person in the Inventors' Hall of Fame is Rangaswamy Srinivasan, a former IBM scientist inducted in 2002 for his pioneering work on excimer laser surgery. Now 79, he came to the US after earning his MSc from University of Madras.