After invention of cell phone, I learned that dreams can come true: Dr Martin Cooper

In the 1970s and 1980s, many were skeptical of cell phone and thought that there was no market for handheld portable phones

On April 3, 1983, Martin Cooper, then a Motorola R&D engineer made the first-ever cell phone call, which also happens to be the first documented epic troll call.

Dr. Cooper, the father of cell phones, in a bid to get the word out to the world that Motorola has achieved an improbable innovation, set up an interview with a journalist and photographer. He asked the crew to follow him in the streets of New York and when he entered Sixth Avenue, he took out the portable handheld phone 'Motorola Dynatac 8000X' from a backpack and he rang his peer Dr. Joel S. Engel, an engineer at Motorola's rival company Bell Labs.

To his luck, Dr. Joel picked up the call; Dr. Cooper as he walked, trolled Engel, saying "I am calling you from a cell phone, a real cell phone, a personal portable handheld phone. There was a silence on the other end of the line, to this day, Dr. Joel doesn't remember the call, but I can't blame him," Dr. Cooper said in an old interview with Bloomberg (April 24, 2015).

On Monday (April 3, 2023), Motorola celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first cell phone call by Dr. Martin Cooper with a video interview.

“When I made the first public portable cell phone call on April 3, 1973, I knew it was only the beginning; that Motorola and the cellphone industry were starting a revolution in personal communications. Since then, there have been a huge number of pivotal innovations, many of them created by Motorola. The first fifty years were only the warm-up. There will be many more exciting advancements that will transform humanity, ” said Martin Cooper.

Motorola's first portable hand-held phone-Motorola Dynatac 8000X with the latest Moto Razr series with a foldable display. Credit: Motorola India

Now, smartphones have become an extension of our hands. Without the phone, most people can't even imagine venturing out of the home. There is even a medical term called NoMoPhobia (No Mobile Phone Phobia).

With smartphones, users can order food, share videos to family staying millions of km away, predict how much time it takes to reach their destination, or can book a cab to go to the office. If you don't like to sit idle in the car's passenger seat, you can even work on PPT to present in the upcoming office meeting and do a lot more things, all with just a few taps on the smartphone's screen.

However, in the late 70s and 80s, as said by Dr. Cooper, people weren't convinced about all the great possibilities of a cell phone.

"In hindsight, many ideas seem obvious and that is certainly true for the cell phone, where there are billions in use today. In the 1970s and 1980s, most people thought that there was no market at all for handheld, portable phones. Not everyone knows how to dream. The reason, I know so much about the future is I spend so much time there. For me, the future is much more interesting than the past." Dr. Cooper noted.

"Look at how it (cell phone) has changed, how we work, how we learn, how we interact with each other, and it will continue to evolve. The cell phone can create new environments, that we thought were never possible. We need more dreamers, people who are not afraid to try, fail, and try again.

When asked what is the most profound thing he learned after he invented the cell phone, Dr. Copper concluded by saying- "I learned that dreams come true".

Dr Martin Cooper video interview:

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