The National Inventors Hall of Fame used the opening day of CES, the world’s largest celebration of technology and innovation, to announce its class of 2019 honorees Jan. 8 in Las Vegas.
The Alexandria-based organization revealed the names of 19 individuals representing 12 different inventions who will be honored May 1-2 at a formal induction ceremony in partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
From the landing craft used in the D-Day invasion to the portable handheld power drill and fluoride toothpaste, the inventions represent innovations that have significantly impacted technology around the world.
Attending the event were 2019 inductee William Warner, inventor of digital non-linear video editing; Nicole Black, winner of the recent Collegiate Inventor Competition; and Steve Sasson, inventor of the digital camera and a 2011 NIHF inductee.
This year’s inductees include: Chieko Asakawa - Home Page Reader Web Browser for the Blind and Visually Impaired; Jeff Kodosky and James Truchard - Virtual Instrumentation - LabVIEW; Rebecca Richards-Kortum - Medical Devices for Low-Resource Settings; Dennis Ritchie (Posthumous) and Ken Thompson - UNIX Operating System; Edmund O. Schweitzer III - Digital Protective Relay; David Walt - Microwell Arrays (genetic analysis); William J. Warner - Digital Nonlinear Editing System; John Baer, Karl H. Beyer Jr., Frederick Novello and James Sprague - Thiazide Diuretics/Chlorothiazide (posthumous); S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker - Portable Hand-Held Electric Drill (posthumous); Andrew Higgins - Higgins Boats LCVP Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel (posthumous); Joseph Lee - Bread Machines (posthumous); Joseph Muhler and William Nebergall - Stannous Fluoride Toothpaste (posthumous).
For more information on the inductees and their inventions, visit www. Invent.org.