Amar Gopal Bose, a 1947 graduate of Abington Senior High School, was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his alma mater, for over 45 years. He was also the founder of the Bose Corporation, widely known for its high-end speaker systems.

According to Bose.com’s “Our History” page, he was born in Philadelphia to a Bengali father (Noni Gopal Bose) and a U.S.-born mother of English and German ancestry (Charlotte).

According to Smithsonian Music, Bose’s father arrived at Ellis Island in the 1920s with twenty dollars in his pocket. At age 13, to supplement his family’s income, Bose enlisted school friends as co-workers in a home-based business repairing model trains and radios.

Bose with his parents in the late 1930s, courtesy of Get Bengal

In 1956, to celebrate his PhD in electrical engineering, the Fulbright scholar bought a new hi-fi stereo system and its disappointing sound quality led to his researching acoustics at MIT in his spare time. He launched Bose Corporation in 1964, and in January of 1968, he released the Bose-901. From there, the company spread around the world.

By 2005, he had become a billionaire and #271 among the top 400 richest Americans as listed by the Forbes Company. In 2011, Forbes published an article about his career trajectory, the same year that he donated a majority of his company to MIT:

Former violin player Amar Bose started repairing radios in high school, after WWII depressed father’s import business. Fulbright scholar earned Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT. Began research on hi-fi sound. Started Bose Corp. 1964. First contracts with NASA, U.S. military improving audio communications. Built brand on groundbreaking loudspeaker design. Today Bose iPod docks, surround-sound home entertainment speaker systems and noise-canceling headphones dominate market; its loudspeakers are used in Sistine Chapel, several Olympic stadiums. Launched VideoWave TV last year, incorporating state-of-the-art speaker technology into 46″ flat screen LCD. Sales believed to exceed $2 billion, today has 126 stores in North America. National Inventors Hall of Fame inductee enjoys badminton, wears nametag around the office like all other employees.

“Never lose your imagination. Always dream of things that are better and think about ways to reach those things,” Bose once said. “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.”

His career honors and awards include:

• Fellow, IEEE, 1972 – for contributions to loudspeaker design, two-state amplifier-modulators, and nonlinear systems.
• Honorary member, Audio Engineering Society, 1985.
• Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music, 1994
• Bose was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008.
• The 2010 IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award, for “outstanding contributions to consumer electronics in sound reproduction, industrial leadership, and engineering education”.
• In 2011, he was listed at #9 on the MIT150 list of the top 150 innovators and ideas from MIT.
• Beryllium Lifetime Achievement Award, Association of Loudspeaker Manufacturing & Acoustics International, 2014.
• Founders Award at The Asian Awards 2015.

Bose passed away on July 12, 2013 at the age of 83. He had two children, a son, Vanu Bose, and a daughter, Maya Bose.

Courtesy of CelebrityXYZ.com

“Dr. Bose founded Bose Corporation almost 50 years ago with a set of guiding principles centered on research and innovation. That focus has never changed, and never will.” Bob Maresca, president and newly appointed CEO of the Bose Corporation, said in 2013.

For more on Dr. Bose, including quotes and interesting facts, you can click here. For clips of Bose’s lectures, you can watch the Youtube video below:

For all the latest news, follow us on Facebook or sign up for Glenside Local’s “Daily Buzz” newsletter here.