Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) uses a phone system to make and receive calls through an internet connection rather than traditional landlines. If you have an internet connection, you can call anyone without the need for traditional, local phone service or physical copper wires. All you need is high-speed internet and a VoIP service provider to handle the calls. The best part is that you aren’t bound to a specific desk. You can use a VoIP phone number via a business phone app to turn your computer or any mobile device into a phone.
But who is the mastermind behind the VoIP we know today?
In 1982, Engineer Dr. Marian Rogers Croak began her career at Bell Labs (later AT&T) with a position in the Human Factors research division, looking at how technology could be used to positively impact people’s lives. She then went on to work on network engineering, where she contemplated the potential of digital telecommunications. Rather than use a traditional phone line for voice communication along with a digital method for internet data, she and her team thought both could be done digitally with the internet. Therefore, they focused on enabling voice traffic that could be both reliable and of high quality. Today, the widespread use of VoIP technology is vital for remote work and conferencing, as well as personal communications.
During her time at AT&T she patented the technology that allowed cellphone users to donate money to organizations using text messaging. She developed this technology during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it revolutionized how people donate to charitable organizations when a natural disaster occurs. She received the 2013 Thomas Edison Patent Award for this technology. She was inspired to do this after seeing AT&T develop technology that helped American Idol set up a voting system that relied on text messages rather than voice calls, in 2003. The technology that she created with co-inventor Hossein Eslambolchi, was not finalized until October 2005, a couple of months after Hurricane Katrina. But through this technology after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, more than $43 million in donations were collected by relief organizations through donations by text message.
After 32 years at AT&T, Croak joined Google in 2014 to spearhead efforts to expand what the internet is capable of around the world. She led a team that brought broadband to developing countries in Asia and Africa, building, for example, public wi-fi in railroad stations in India.
In 2022, she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame — among the highest honors for inventors, including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright brothers.
Croak became one of first two Black women to receive that honor, alongside the late Patricia Bath, an ophthalmologist who created a device used during surgery to easily remove cataracts. (Of the Hall of Fame’s 610 inductees, just 48 of them are women and 30 are Black, according to Rini Paiva, executive vice president for selection and recognition at the NIHF.)
As one of the first-ever Black women to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, Croak recognizes the importance of diversity in a historically homogenous industry. “I find that it inspires people when they see someone who looks like themselves on some dimension, and I’m proud to offer that type of representation,” Croak said in her interview with Google. “I want people to understand that it may be difficult but that they can overcome obstacles and that it will be so worth it.”
Sources:
Han, Y. (n.d.). Marian Croak, who has 200 patents to her name including the technology behind Zoom, became one of the first black women to be inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame. Business Insider. https://www.businessinsider.com/marian-croak-black-inventor-hall-of-fame-technology-internet-voip-2023-3#:~:text=Marian%20Croak%2C%20who%20has%20200,the%20Inventors%20Hall%20of%20Fame
Jbkatz. (2023, January 5). Croak, dr Marian Rogers – inventor of VoIP. Amazing Black History. https://amazingblackhistory.com/2023/01/05/croak-dr-marian-rogers-inventor-of-voip/#:~:text=Marian%20Rogers%20Croak%2C%20one%20of,with%20more%20than%20200%