“We honor people responsible for the greatest technological advances that make human, social and economic progress possible,” noted the agency. The Patent Office will formally induct Paulraj at a special ceremony on May 3, 2018, in Washington. Though the agency honored five other Indian-origin scientists in the past, Paulraj joins eight other world-famed inventors in the wireless technology field, who were inducted into the Hall of Fame.

“I feel humbled to be counted among the inventors who have made the modern world possible. When I joined Stanford in 1992, I had not worked in wireless technology, as my prior years in India were spent on sonar systems,” said Paulraj in an e-mail to IANS from Stanford in California.

The other Indian wireless pioneer holding a patent for breakthrough work in radio and microwave optics was Jagdish Chandra Bose (1858-1937) in the 1890s. “It was perhaps being an outsider helped me come up with this transformative idea. Like other breakthroughs, though MIMO faced skepticism, it took off and is the foundation of all wireless systems,” recalled Paulraj. The other eight wireless inventors inducted into the Hall of Fame are Guglielmo Marconi and Oliver Lodge (wireless telegraph), Reginald Fessenden (AM radio), Edwin Armstrong (FM radio), Amos Joel (Cellular technology), Andrew Viterbi and Irwin Jacobs (CDMA-3G) and Jan Haartsen (Bluetooth).