Amar Bose | |
---|---|
Born |
Amar Gopal Bose November 2, 1929 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States |
Died | July 12, 2013 Wayland, Massachusetts, United States |
(aged 83)
Alma mater | MIT (BS, PhD) |
Occupation | Founder of Bose Corporation |
Net worth | $1 billion (2011) |
Spouse(s) |
Ursula Boltzhauser (his death) Prema Bose (divorced) |
Children |
Vanu Bose Maya Bose |
Ursula Boltzhauser (his death)
Amar Gopal Bose (Bengali: অমর বোস), (November 2, 1929 – July 12, 2013) was an American academic and entrepreneur of Bengali descent. An electrical engineer and sound engineer, he was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for over 45 years. He was also the founder and chairman of Bose Corporation. In 2011, he donated a majority of the company to MIT in the form of non-voting shares to sustain and advance MIT’s education and research mission.
Bose was born in a Bengali Hindu family and raised in Philadelphia to a Bengali father, Noni Gopal Bose and an American mother, Charlotte. His father was an Indian freedom revolutionary who, having been imprisoned for his political activities, fled Bengal in the 1920s in order to avoid further persecution by the British colonial police. His mother, Charlotte, is described as an American schoolteacher of French and German ancestry, but Bose described her as "more Bengali than me. She was a vegetarian and deeply interested in Vedanta and Hindu philosophy".
Bose first displayed his entrepreneurial skills and his interest in electronics at age thirteen when, during the World War II years, he enlisted school friends as co-workers in a small home business repairing model trains and home radios, to supplement his family's income.