This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Guglielmo Marconi’s monumental breakthrough in wireless communications helped pave the way for the advanced technology we use every day.
We honor his vision for the power of technology and innovation to connect the world.
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy, on April 25, 1874. An inquisitive scientist and researcher, at the age of 35 Marconi would earn the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics (shared with Karl Ferdinand Braun), for his contributions to wireless telegraphy.
He experimented with the application of Hertzian waves to the wireless transmission of messages over a long distance. He successfully transmitted a signal across a distance of 2km through the obstacle of a hill and continued his experiments until he was able to successfully transmit a message 2,100 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in 1901. Notably, when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on April 14, 1912, the 712 survivors owed their lives to the distress calls from the Marconi wireless equipment on board. As Lord Samuel, Postmaster General at the time, stated: “Those who have been saved have been saved through one man, Mr. Marconi and his wonderful invention.”
This monumental achievement in 1901 changed the landscape of mass communication forever. Marconi (and his company, Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company) would continue to lead the way in telecommunications, specifically in radio.
Marconi passed away in 1937 at the age of 63. He was laid to rest at the Villa Griffone, the Marconi family residence, which is now celebrated as the birthplace of wireless.
The Marconi Society
Guglielmo Marconi’s daughter, Gioia Marconi Braga, founded the Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation (now the Marconi Society) in 1974.
She characterized the Fellowship as “unique […] in that it does not reward a person for intellectual achievements alone, but seeks to recognize and sustain those spiritual aspirations that a creative thinker may wish to apply to the establishment of a better world in which to live.”
Since its founding, the Marconi Society has continued to celebrate the leading innovators in advanced communications while expanding its role as a primary advocate for research, partnerships, and programming in service of digital inclusion.