BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Mar. 21, 2019– The Belizean-American computer software inventor, Andre Gray, who is often described as “The Godfather of Internet Invention,” was honored Monday, March 18, when he was presented with a plaque and given the key to the city of Bridgeport, Connecticut, by its Mayor, Joseph Ganim.
The ceremony took place at Curiale School, where Gray also addressed students.
In his remarks to the students, Gray impressed upon them the need for an education in technology, which he stressed is “no longer optional” for future generations.
“If you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, an engineer, a policeman you will still have to be digitally literate; even if you want to work for UPS, you will have to be computer savvy,” Gray says.
Some of Gray’s inventions include software for smart phones, including the original voicemail icon and the very first ringtones.
Grey told Amandala, “This is a very rare honor and is given only to those who have had a profound impact in their field or upon society. It’s handed out once in a blue moon. In the past, it was awarded to Sean “Puffy” Combs, rapper 50 Cent, comedian Kevin Hart and the Prince of Saudi Arabia.”
Gray has been credited with creating 15 internet software inventions since 1998.
1. (dot) RPM: Audio Codec For Computer Music—a highly influential paper on audio compression (1982). It provided the mathematical formulas for mp3, AIFF, WAV and every audio-video codec formats in the world, both past & present.
2. “Internet Killed The Video Star” (1988) first song ever uploaded to the Internet. The birth of online digital media.
3. “inkling” World’s first Internet Bot (1988). Internet Bots are responsible for 75% of all internet activities.
4. Voicemail Icon design (1988). Used on the Internet and now on all 15 billion mobile phones and counting.
5. Retrogrooves: World’s first Digital DJ turntables software (1989). Today, 98% of all DJs in the world use DJing softwares.
6. Electronic Ticket (1991). Now a trillion-dollar industry.
7. Ringtones and Ringbacks (SYNC PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE) (1994). SYNC is also the world’s first downloadable app. The downloadable apps sector is now a trillion-dollar industry. Ringtones is on 15 billion mobile phones and counting.
8. Mind-Over-Matter-Technology. (1994). Controlling electronic devices by use of the mind only. Facebook, Nissan, Neuralink and others were inspired by this technology and now use it.
9. Electronic Press Kit (EPK) (1995). Indispensable online branding & marketing tool. EPK singlehandedly gave birth to Social Media.
10. Microgrooves-E (1998). World’s first mobile phone multimedia player capable of playing entire albums and recording/playback of audio & video. Every Smartphone has these features now.
11. Online Music Sales Certifications (1999). Tracking music sales over the web, hence the birth of big data analytics.
12. SNAP (Synthesizer Algorithms Programming) (2008). Vendor neutral synthesizer programming language.
13. Microgrooves HD (2016) improved vinyl records format.
14. Microgrooves Digital (2016) improved vinyl records format.
15. Microgrooves Green Tea (2016) improved vinyl records format.