Amar Bose

Biography

 Amar G Bose was an American Scientist, Professor , researcher and Entrepreneur. He is well known for founding the Bose Corporation(1964), an audio equipment designing, developing and selling company. Bose Noise Cancelling headphones, audio systems, vehicle sound systems are quite popular and are 'the' Brand looked for.

Childhood- Family

Amar Bose was born on November 2, 1929 to an Indian father of Bengali descent, His father Noni Gopal Bose was a freedom fighter in India, he had to leave India to escape an intended imprisonment by the British, he arrived at Ellis Island, USA in 1920 with just $5 in his pocket. Bose's mother Charlotte Mechlin was a school teacher, she was of French-German ancestry. Sh

At those times in the United States, a person of color would not be served in public restaurants, there was prejudice especially against the African Americans though not against East Indians. Noni Bose would pretend to be an African American while facing such situations and demand equality, those impressions stuck firmly in Amar's mind.

Image: Amar Bose Childhood: Father Noni Bose and mother Charlotte

Dr Bose's father was a nominal Hindu, his mother Charlotte was quite fascinated by Vedanta and Hindu philosophy, it was during the lectures on Vedanta that they met. It was a regular Hindu household with lot of Indian influence. Dr Amar Bose was not a religious person, he meditated regularly for short periods and attributes some qualities he imbibed to the philosophy of his parents.

Prema Bose

Bose lived in New Delhi, India for a year as a Fulbright research fellow, there he met his future Wife Prema, Bose and Prema met at a spiritual discourse by a Swami on Vedanta. The couple had two children, Vanu Bose (born in 1965) and a daughter named Maya Bose.

Image: Amar Bose's Daughter Maya Bose

Vanu Bose: Son Vanu Bose is a graduate from MIT, he also has a PhD from MIT. He is the founder and CEO of Vanu, Inc. An organization working on software-defined Radio technology. In 2005 his company worked with Indian organizations to make cell phone rates cheaper in India. He also founded Vanu Coverage Company a subsidiary of Vanu, Inc. In 2007 Vanu married Judith L. Hill, they have a daughter name Kamala Bose.

Image: Amar Bose with son Vanu Bose & granddaughter Kamala Bose

Ursula Boltzhauser

Amar Bose married his colleague Ursula Boltzhauser later in his life after the divorce with first wife Prema.

Image: Amar Bose's second wife Ursula Boltzhauser

Education

Amar attended the Abington Senior High School in Abington, Pennsylvania.

Amar was part of the Boy Scouts team at the age of 13, he saw a friend use the radio and it fascinated Bose, he used the diagrams and figured out how radios worked, it helped him in repairing Radios and making a business out of it in his teen years.

He was accepted into MIT in 1947, his father Noni Bose borrowed a sum of $10,000 for his son's education, he was scared of his survival there, the tough competition he got encouraged him to study hard, he would be the first to enter the library at 7 O clock, he eventually got good enough grades to get scholarship from the university. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the MIT.

Bose wrote a thesis on non-linear systems for his PhD at the MIT under Norbert Wiener & Yuk-Wing Lee.

Career

Teaching

After his graduation at the MIT he got an opportunity to work there as a faculty, he initially rejected it, not knowing how much fun it could be to teach.

He was not really interested in teaching, but eventually took the job to support his researching. His teaching classes became famous, he would teach science along with Life and it fascinated the students, he loved mentoring, students loved him and followed him like a 'pied piper'.

He was awarded the prestigious Baker Teaching Award in 1963-64. He taught for 45 years at the MIT till 2001. The Bose Award for Excellence in Teaching (1989), and the Junior Bose Award (1995) were established at the MIT School of Engineering in his honor to recognize and honor outstanding teachers the 

Bose Corporation

As a young Engineer just graduating from MIT, Bose was full of ideas for audio technology, In 1964 he started a company to work on Audio devices. He gathered some of his colleagues at MIT and made it a special organization that is today. Sherwin Greenblatt was the first employee hired by Bose to work in his corporation.

First product: In January of 1968, he released a product named Bose-901 to the market. The sales took off and the company expanded around the world.

Noise Cancelling headphones

In 1978 on his travel in a plane he used the headphone that had been provided, he was fascinated by that new idea, but was disappointed by the quality of it. While still flying in his seat, he took out pencils and made plans for a better quality headphone which could reduce the sound to nil.

He made plans to design a Noise cancelling headphone which would use Noise to cancel noise, it was at the time considered a ridiculous idea, being an Electrical Engineer Bose knew his stuff. It gave rise to the future noise cancelling headphones that are used today.

The first of the Noise cancelling headphones was introduced on trial on business class place headphones and the customer feedback was extraordinary, it propelled the company to next level.

Bluetooth speakers, home theater systems are among the inventions of Bose Corporation.

He spent $50 Million on researching Noise cancelling headphones before it was finally done after 10 years, 'If it was a publicly traded company I would have been fired years ago' joked Dr. Bose.

Bose Corporation was estimated to have had generated a revenue of $3.5 Billion. In 2015 Bose Corporation employed around 12,000 people.

Bose speakers are used at notable places like Staples Center (Los Angeles), the Sistine Chapel , the Masjid al-Haram (grand mosque in Mecca).

Car brands like Mercedes, Porsche, Maserati, Maybach and others prefer Bose speakers for their automobiles.

Bose speakers are used by Astronauts and Pilots for their excellent noise cancelling features.

Philanthropy

Later in 2011, he donated majority of his Bose Corporation shares to MIT, his Alma Mater, to support Research & Development at MIT. The staff at MIT was thrilled, "What do you want us to do with it?" they asked, "Whatever you feel fit" was his answer.

MIT can only use the dividends, they are prohibited from selling shares or being part of the Bose Corporation Management.

Death

Dr. Bose died on July 12, 2013 at the ripe age of 83 in his home at Wayland, Massachusetts. He is survived by his Wife Ursula Boltzhauser, two children (Vanu Bose & Maya Bose) and grand daughter  Kamala.

Interesting Facts

Indian connection

Amar Bose's father Noni Bose was a freedom fighter from India who fled to USA to avoid the imprisonment by the British. His American house was a home for the visiting Indian revolutionaries & freedom fighters. 'Unitl my 10-11th year, I probably knew more about India than America.', Dr. Bose had said once jokingly.

• Birth: He was born in a hospital during the great depression years, his parents had their money in stocks and the money had vanished over night, they had to borrow $75 to get the baby released from the hospital.
• He was greatly influenced by the philosophy of his parents. He had great reverence for his parents.
• He had great interest in things that are electrical.
• As a Child he would buy old toys and fix them, there began his interest in fixing and inventing stuff.
• He had a radio repair shop in his basement while in High School. His father's carpet business (importing coir mats from India) was going dull because of world war 2 and Amar's enthusiasm helped the family survive.
• He was very good at Mathematics.
• Bose worked in Netherlands for an year at the NV Philips Electronics in researching
• He was a pioneer in psychoacoustics, his company excels in that than any other.
• He is said to have been very strict with the patents
• In 2007, he was among the Top 400 richest (#271) in the world as listed by the Forbes Company, with a networth of $1.8 billion.
• He was the CEO of a software-defined radio technology company.
• Alan V. Oppenheim, professor at MIT, well known for his book "Discrete-Time Signal Processing and Signals and Systems" was a doctoral student under Amar. He wrote his dissertation "Superposition in a Class of Nonlinear Systems" under the direction of Amar. [2]

Awards - Recognitions

• Baker Teaching Award (1963–64): He was conferred the award for teaching. He continued to teach at MIT till 2001.
•  IEEE Fellowship (1972): He was honored with a fellowship by IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineer) (a professional association of Electrical and Electronic engineers) for his ontributions to loudspeaker design, nonlinear systems and two-state amplifier-modulators
• Audio Engineering Society Membership(1985): He was honored with a membership by AES, an organisation of engineers and scientists that work on the betterment of audio systems.
• Berklee College of Music, Honorary Doctorate (1994): Berklee College of Music,  the largest independent contemporary music college in Boston Massachusetts honored him with a doctorate for his contributions to improve the audio systems.
• National Inventors Hall of Fame induction (2008): NIHF, the American not-for-profit organization which recognizes engineers and innovators who hold US patents for significant technologies, inducted him to the Hall of Fame in 2008.
• IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award (2010) He won the Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award for his "outstanding contributions to consumer electronics in sound reproduction, industrial leadership, and engineering education"
• MIT 150 List (2011): In the 2011 list of top MIT innovators made by Boston Globe, in honor of 150th anniversary of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was listed at number 9. Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web topped the list. [3]
• Beryllium Lifetime Achievement Award (2014): He was awarded by the Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics International for his contributions towards audio engineering
• The Asian Awards (2015): At the Asian Awards, an annual award ceremony for the global Asian community held in the United Kingdom, Amar Bose was honoured with the "Founders" (Category) Award, it was received by his daughter Maya Bose. [4]

Quotes

• Perhaps the most important thing that dies within man while living is his imagination, Never lose your imagination, think of steps to make them reality.
• I had a burning desire to design things.
• You are capable of much more than what you think you are capable of.
• Whatever job you are given, ask yourself 'How can I do that job better, than it is ever done before'
• I visualized this thing (speaker), I saw it thousands of homes to come. It would outperform anything ever existed and therefore it would be successful. 
• I never went into business to make money. I went into business so that I could do interesting things that hadn't been done before. [1]
• These innovations are not the result of rational thought; it's an intuitive idea. [1]
• I believe that everything a human being does at any point in life is a result of the influences during his growing up.
• I grew up with lot of Indian food, My mother was a good cook, but my father was a better one.
• MIT is a great institution, not because it has the great minds, but because it allows the freedom to research and innovate.
• We had two policies from day 1 at the Bose corporation. There would be no retirement with the conditions 1) The person wants to work, 2) The person can work.

Sources

1. Amar Bose on wikipedia
2. Alan V Oppenheim
3. MIT 150
4. The Asian Awards
5.