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Google CEO Sundar Pichai Addresses A Event In Delhi

Source: Hindustan Times / Getty

WE OWE YOU ONE, MARIAN

Marian R. Croak – Developer of VoIP – Ability to make calls on a digital device. The reason you can still make a call over wifi when you didn’t pay your phone bill!

Ever wondered how we went from using a house phone, then stopping at a pay phone while out to have a car phone? Then in a blink of an eye have humongous cell phones and overnight convert to using small digital devices just to make a call! Well without Marian we wouldn’t be able to talk on any digital device.

Marian R Croak is a modern inventor known for developing Voice Over Internet Protocols (VoIP). This technology converts a person’s voice into a digital signal and allows calls to be made from a digital device like your computer, cell phone, or even tablet. We can say that we owe Mariam for being able to talk on our iPhones every day. Croak was born in 1955 and raised in New York City. Croak attended Princeton University for her undergraduate and the University of Southern California for her doctorate, with a focus on statistical analysis and social psychology. Croak began her research at her first job at Bell Labs, now At&T in the Human Factors Research Division. Her main goal was to learn how tech can be used to impact people’s lives in a positive way! She then went to work figuring out the possibilities of digital telecommunications, instead of using a traditional phone line to make calls.

Croak is now the Vice President of Engineering at Google and was formerly the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T. Croak hold over 200 patents and is an inductee of the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame. Just this year (2022), Croak has inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her VoIP patent (Voice over Internet Protocol) Technology.

President Obama Awards National Medals Of Science And Nat'l Medals Of Technology And Innovation

Source: NurPhoto / Getty

WE OWE YOU ONE, SHIRLEY

Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson – Inventor of caller ID and Call Waiting.

The reason we know who to block and can keep people o hold and The reason you can dodge them, bill collectors. Most of us don’t remember having a caller id or even rotary phones. However, there was a day when no ones name popped up when the call came. Voicemails weren’t just 2nd thoughts. They were a priority… Because if you missed a call there was no way to know when and who called if they did not leave a voice message. Well thanks to Shirley Ann Jackson, we can dodge calls or even get excited to answer when we see whose calling! Shirley had a number of successful physics experiments that made breakthroughs in scientific research that led to the invention of the fax machine, the touch-tone phone, fiber optic cells, solar cells, and the technology used for caller ID and call waiting

Shirley is a known physicist and the former head of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). She was one of the first black women to a doctorate in physics in the US. Shirley was the first to receive a doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Shirley was the first woman and African American to serve as the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She was also, appointed to serve on President Barack Obama’s council of advisors for science and technology. She was invited to the white house for a special ceremony in 2016 and was presented with the National Medal of Honor, the highest honor for scientific achievement possible by the U.S. government.

We owe Dr. Shirley! Without her, we wouldn’t have advancements in the workplace and we really wouldn’t be able to dodge the call after that horrible first date!

We Owe You One: What Black People Built  was originally published on blackamericaweb.com