Hedy Lamarr was born on November 9, 1913 in Vienna, Austria as Hedwig Eva Maria Lamarr. She was a famous Austrian actress and was known for the splendid Silver Screen exploits. Other than her acting accomplishments, she also became a pioneer in the field of wireless communications, following her immigration to the United States of America. The international icon along with her co-inventor, George Anthiel, designed a "Secret Communications System" to help combat the Nazi forces in the World War II. This invention protected the classified messages from being intercepted by the enemy by forming an unbreakable code by modifying radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception.
Although these inventors received a patent in 1941, yet the importance of their great invention was realized even decades later and this technology was first applied in the naval ships during the Cuban missile crisis and thus emerged with numerous other military applications.
Most significantly, the spread spectrum technology had the widest applications in the sphere of cellular phones, fax machines etc. and could galvanize the digital communications boom.
To praise this invention which proved to be breakthrough in the communication networks, Lamarr and Anthiel were honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award in the year 1997. The same year, Lamarr became the first female to be awarded with the 'BULBIE Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award' which is also called as the OSCAR of inventing.
Truley personifying the tag of ' Beauty with the Brains' Hedy Lamarr marked her presence and became an immortal name amongst the famous Woman Inventors and proved that her technological understanding and caliber was far ahead of her time.
Source : http://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp
