Apple's late CEO, Steve Jobs
The annual Lemelson-MIT Innovation Index has named former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who passed away on October 5, 2011, as the second 'greatest innovator of all time', behind the inventor of the first practical electric light bulb -- Thomas Edison.
The annual Lemelson-MIT Innovation Index
surveys Americans aged 16-25 on their perceptions of innovation and invention, including their opinion on who was the ‘greatest innovator of all time.'
According to the results of this year's survey, released January 25, 24 percent of those surveyed selected Steve Jobs, former Apple CEO and driving force behind devices such as the iPhone and iPad, as the ‘greatest innovator of all time'.
The results of the survey placed Steve Jobs above Alexander Graham Bell, credited with inventing the first practical telephone, who received 10 percent of the vote; Marie Curie, who pioneered research on radioactivity, and received five percent of the vote; creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerburg, who got three percent; Amelia Earhart, aviation pioneer, with three percent of the vote; and finally Temple Grandin who received two percent of the vote and is a doctor of animal sciences and inventor of the ‘squeeze machine,' which calms hyper-sensitive people.
Overall those surveyed in the Lemelson-MIT Innovation Index named Thomas Edison as the greatest innovator of all time with 52 percent of the vote. During his lifetime (1847-1931), Edison filed 1,093 patents in his name and is credited with developing the first practical electric light bulb, a system for electricity distribution, and the first commercially available fluoroscope, used by doctors to obtain real-time images of a patient's internal structure, as well as numerous other devices.
Steve Jobs's legacy has been marked in many ways around the world including the unveiling of a larger-than-life statue of the former Apple CEO in Budapest in December.