Silverbrook: Unsung Scientist, Serial Entrepreneur and World’s 2nd Most Prolific Inventor
People often consider Thomas Edison the most prolific inventor in history, but many would be surprised to know that he is far surpassed for that honor by a man who is still inventing today.
Kia Silverbrook is an Australian inventor who started his first company at the age of 19 in 1977, and since then has been inventing all sorts of useful devices, many of which you probably use today without even knowing it.
He currently has over 4,600 patents to his name, and almost 10,000 total patents or patent applications registered in the international patent document database.
So what has he designed? Silverbrook has made numerous inventions in the fields of digital music synthesis, digital video, digital printing, computer graphics, liquid crystal displays, robotics, 3D printing, DNA analysis, solar photovoltaics, image processing, microelectromechanical systems, cryptography, nanotechnology, microfluidics, semiconductor fabrication, and integrated circuit architecture to name just a few.
It’s okay if you need to take a moment to catch your breath after reading that list, we certainly had to after writing it.
Sure, none of his inventions have been as flashy as Edison’s, but all of them have been essential in creating the high tech revolution we all depend on today, making him perhaps the most obscure influential person in the world.
Born in 1958, Silverbrook is one of the most prolific inventors in the world, and as of 19 December 2017, has been granted 4,744 US utility patents. Kia Silverbrook is the second-most prolific inventor in the world.
