Described as America’s greatest inventor, Thomas Edison’s legacy is an everlasting one. He was the first to help make the incandescent light bulb commercially viable, even though he was not the first inventor of it. Quadruplex telegraph, phonograph, motion picture camera and the alkaline storage battery are some the many innovations that made him a worldwide phenomenon and an icon.
David Baszucki is a Canadian-born American entrepreneur and inventor. He is credited with co-founding the Roblox Corporation, for which he also serves as the CEO. He is also credited with co-founding Knowledge Revolution, a company which was obtained by MSC Software in 1998. In 2017 and 2018, Baszucki was named one of the 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs by Goldman Sachs.



Former Intel marketing manager Mike Markkula was able to retire at 32 with millions in his bank, owing to his intelligent stock trading decisions. He later became an angel investor for Steve Jobs’s Apple and also the company’s second CEO. He was later also associated with companies such as Echelon.

Harry Nyquist was a Swedish electronic engineer and physicist best remembered for his contributions to communication theory. His work earned him many prestigious awards such as the IRE Medal of Honor, the Stuart Ballantine Medal, and the Rufus Oldenburger Medal. Harry Nyquist is also remembered for his association with Bell Telephone Laboratories.


Jensen Huang is a Taiwanese-American electrical engineer and businessman. He is credited with co-founding an American multinational technology company named Nvidia Corporation where he currently serves as president and CEO. Jensen Huang is also known for his philanthropic efforts; he donated US$30 million to Stanford University and $2 million to Oneida Baptist Institute.

Swiss-born Belgian physicist Auguste Piccard is best remembered for his research on the Earth’s upper stratosphere. He designed his own ships to explore the depth of the seas and also built balloons to study cosmic rays. His bathyscaphe remains one of his best-known inventions. He also co-discovered the magnetocaloric effect.


A professor at the Coventry and Reading universities, engineer Kevin Warwicke specializes in artificial intelligence, robotics, and biomedical engineering. One of his most interesting research interests is the possibility of creating cyborgs, which has earned him the nickname Captain Cyborg. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from several universities.


German engineer and auto designer Wilhelm Maybach once earned the nickname The King of Designers. He collaborated with Gottlieb Daimler and formed Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft, eventually designing the first Mercedes automobiles. He and his son later started an aircraft engine company. In 1996, he was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Born into a family of Japanese politicians that has been compared to the Kennedy family of the U.S., Yukio Hatoyama has served as Japan’s prime minister and as the Democratic Party president. An engineer, who later obtained a PhD from Stanford, he has also taught at a few universities earlier.

Marcel Dassault was a French industrialist and engineer. He played an important role during the First World War when he developed a type of aircraft propeller which was used by the French army. In 1916, he worked with Louis Coroller and Henry Potez to form a company named Société d'Études Aéronautiques in order to manufacture the SEA series of fighters.



While initially working in the machine plants and firearms industries, Henry M. Leland gradually mastered the art of toolmaking and manufacturing. He later revolutionized the auto industry and was the man behind the car brands Cadillac and Lincoln. He introduced inventions such as the electric starter and the V-8 engine.
Born in Shanghai, An Wang studied electrical engineering before moving to Harvard to get his PhD. The Wang Laboratories co-founder is remembered for inventing the magnetic core memory, which was the main component of computers till the invention of the microchip. He also developed many word-processing systems.



A master production designer, Ken Adam won his first Academy Award for his work in Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. While working as a flight lieutenant during World War II, he had earned the nickname Heinie the Tank-buster. He is also remembered for his sets in a number of James Bond films.

British-American researcher, historian, economist, writer and professor Antony Cyril Sutton served as a Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution for War, Revolution and Peace and as a professor of economics at California State University, Los Angeles. He authored 25 books and is best-known for his book America's Secret Establishment: An Introduction to the Order of Skull and Bones.

Gottfried Feder was a German economist and civil engineer. One of the most important members of the Nazi Party, Feder served as the party's economic theoretician during its formative years. In 1919, Gottfried Feder delivered one of his most famous lectures that lured Adolf Hitler into the Nazi Party.


Umberto Nobile was an Italian aeronautical engineer, Arctic explorer, and aviator. A developer of semi-rigid airships, Nobile is best remembered for designing the airship Norge, which was the first airship to fly across the polar ice cap between America and Europe. Umberto Nobile is also credited with designing and piloting the airship Italia, which belonged to the Italian Air Force.

Russian theologian Pavel Florensky is best remembered for his essay The Pillar and the Ground of Truth. During Stalin’s regime and amid a phase of national atheism, he was sent to jail and also banished to Siberia for his religious beliefs, which he refused to renounce.

Clément Ader was a French engineer and inventor best remembered for his pioneering work in aviation. Widely regarded as the father of aviation in France, Clément Ader is still revered for his early powered-flight efforts. His aircraft models are still displayed at Paris' Musée des Arts et Métiers.


Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese physicist and engineer. Isamu, who specializes in semiconductor technology, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2014 along with Shuji Nakamura and Hiroshi Amano. Isamu Akasaki also won other prestigious awards like the Kyoto Prize, IEEE Edison Medal, Charles Stark Draper Prize, and Asia Game Changer Award.



Octave Chanute was a French-American aviation pioneer and civil engineer. He is credited with helping budding enthusiasts like the Wright brothers by providing them with help and advice. He also helped publicize their flying experiments. At the time of his death, Octave Chanute was referred to as the father of aviation.



Born to actor Helena Modjeska, Polish-American engineer Ralph Modjeski was a talented pianist in his younger days. He later worked on the railroad bridge across the Mississippi and also re-designed the Quebec Bridge after a major disaster. Over his illustrious career, he had designed over 50 major bridges.


British Conservative Nicholas Ridley, or Baron Ridley of Liddesdale, was born into aristocracy and received an elite education at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He held several significant posts, such as the secretary of state for the environment and was a major supporter of Thatcherism.



DuMont Television Network founder Allen B. DuMont is remembered for his development of the first commercial cathode-ray tube, later used as a receiver for the modern-day TV. He had first developed an interest in electronics while reading books on the subject while bedridden due to polio as a child.

Recognized as the pioneer of the social credit economic reform movement, Major Clifford Hugh Douglas was an engineer by professional. His interest turned to economics when he noticed that the weekly total costs of goods was greater than the sums paid to workers, leading to his development of the social credit theory, which encompasses economics, political science, history, and accounting.

Austrian automobile designer and manufacturer Hans Ledwinka is remembered for his numerous patents and inventions, the most prominent of them all being the backbone chassis mechanism, which he incorporated in Tatra vehicles. He was jailed after being accused of collaborating with German forces during World War II.


