Mohamed Attallah, the Egyptian who changed the world of technology
First Bank
Mohamed Attallah, or as his professional name was known, John (Martin) Attallah, was born in Port Said in 1924, and studied science at Cairo University.
Attallah received a master's degree and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the American Purdue University, after which he worked with Bell Laboratories in New York and led a research group of young volunteers in transistor research.
With his colleague Dawon Kahng, he was able to invent his most important achievement in the world of modern electronics: MOSFET, a type of transistor used as a switch or power transformer.
The company paid little attention to inventing it, because its specialization in mechanical engineering and he is not a physicist, mathematician or chemist in the company. Yet his invention revolutionized later and became a part of almost all electronics, from video games to satellites, leaving Bell and joining HP, and there he oversaw the development of LDE screens.
In 1972, Attallah decided to turn to the world of corporate insurance and founded his own company, patented the Telecommunication Network PIN Security System, which is an introduction to telephone banking, Internet security and e-commerce, and then invented the technology of Attallah Fund’s data protection.
He announced his retirement in 1990, but one of the largest U.S. banks, Willis Fargo, persuaded him to return, to succeed in developing Internet security systems that helped companies to safely exchange files, email and video via the network.
Attallah was awarded the Stuart Ballantyne Medal in Physics (currently Benjamin Franklin Medal), and when he died in 2009 he was honored and included in the National Inventors Hall of Fame dedicated to America's most prominent inventors.
