Irwin M. Jacobs
Encyclopedia
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
, and chair of the board of trustees of the Salk Institute. In 2010, Jacobs was listed as number 828 on Forbes's
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
annual list of the World's Top Billionaires.
Education
Jacobs earned his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Cornell UniversityCornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
in 1956, and his S.M. and Sc.D.
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
degrees in EECS (Electrical Engineering and Computer Science) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) in 1957 and 1959, respectively. Additionally, he is a brother of Sigma Alpha Mu
Sigma Alpha Mu
Sigma Alpha Mu , also known as "Sammy", is a college fraternity founded at the City College of New York in 1909. Originally only for Jewish men, Sigma Alpha Mu remained so until 1953, when members from all backgrounds were accepted. Originally headquartered in New York, Sigma Alpha Mu has...
Fraternity.
Career
Jacobs was Assistant and Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT from 1959 to 1966 and Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at University of California, San DiegoUniversity of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
from 1966 to 1972. He co-authored a textbook entitled Principles of Communication Engineering in 1965, which is still in use today. UCSD's Jacobs School of Engineering
Jacobs School of Engineering
The Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego is an undergraduate and graduate-level engineering school offering Bachelors of Science , Master of Engineering , Master of Science , and Doctorate degree programs...
is named for him and his wife.
In 1968 Jacobs co-founded Linkabit
Linkabit
Linkabit was a technology company founded in 1968 by Irwin M. Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi and Leonard Kleinrock. Linkabit created a large number of technology companies, most notably, Qualcomm. Linkabit is currently a division of L-3 Communications....
Corporation with Andrew Viterbi
Andrew Viterbi
Andrew James Viterbi, Ph.D. is an Italian-American electrical engineer and businessman who co-founded Qualcomm Inc....
to develop satellite encryption devices. That company merged with M/A-COM in 1980, becoming M/A-COM Linkabit.
In 1985 Jacobs went on to co-found Qualcomm
Qualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
. QUALCOMM's OmniTRACS system is one of the world's most "technologically advanced two-way mobile satellite communications and tracking systems. He pioneered these systems which use the communication bandwidth more efficiently than the older fixed time-sliced TDMA
Time division multiple access
Time division multiple access is a channel access method for shared medium networks. It allows several users to share the same frequency channel by dividing the signal into different time slots. The users transmit in rapid succession, one after the other, each using its own time slot. This...
technology. Its Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) has been adopted as one of two digital standards for the next generation of cellular telephones in North America. Dr. Jacobs announced on March 3, 2009 that he had stepped down as chairman of Qualcomm and that Paul E. Jacobs
Paul E. Jacobs
-Career:Paul E. Jacobs has been Chief Executive Officer of the company since July 2005, having previous to that date served as the Group President of Qualcomm Wireless and Internet Group from July 2001. Jacobs started with the company as an engineer in the wireless technology development group in...
, his son, had been named to succeed him.
Affiliations
Irwin Jacobs is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the IEEE. He is a chairman on the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and is on the international advisory board for the Israel Institute of Technology. Additionally, he serves on the advisory board for the School of Economics and Management at Tsing Hua University in Beijing. He is also active on the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles.Awards and honors
In 1980, Irwin Jacobs was the co-recipient, with Dr. Andrew J. Viterbi, the 1980 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) biannual award. In 1992, Jacobs was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year Award in High Technology by the Institute of American Entrepreneurs, and in May of 1993, he was awarded the American Electronics Association (AEA) "Inventing America's Future" award.For his development of CDMA, Dr. Jacobs was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1994. That same year, he was awarded the 1994 Cornell University Entrepreneur of the Year Award. In 1995, Jacobs won the 1995 IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal For outstanding contributions to telecommunications, including leadership, theory, practice and product development.
He was named a Marconi Prize recipient and Marconi Fellow in 2011. Jacobs was awarded the Bower Award for Business Leadership in 2001.
Jacobs and his wife Joan Jacobs are contributors to public arts and education in San Diego. For this, Jacobs was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship in 2004.
Jacobs delivered the 2005 commencement speech
Commencement speech
A commencement speech or commencement address is a speech given to graduating students, generally at a university, although the term is also used for secondary education institutions. The "commencement" is a ceremony in which degrees or diplomas are conferred upon graduating students...
at MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
, and the 2008 commencement speech at the Jacobs School of Engineering.
Jacobs and Andrew J. Viterbi received the 2007 IEEE/RSE Wolfson James Clerk Maxwell Award, for "fundamental contributions, innovation, and leadership that enabled the growth of wireless telecommunications".
Personal life
He and his wife reside in California, and have four sons. His outside interests include the arts, reading, jogging, and family outings. Their son Paul E. JacobsPaul E. Jacobs
-Career:Paul E. Jacobs has been Chief Executive Officer of the company since July 2005, having previous to that date served as the Group President of Qualcomm Wireless and Internet Group from July 2001. Jacobs started with the company as an engineer in the wireless technology development group in...
is CEO of Qualcomm. Jeff Jacobs is the Chief Marketing Officer of Qualcomm. Hal Jacobs the second oldest, played on the 1985 USA Maccabi volleyball team, and is a Co-Producer of the hit musical Jersey Boys. Their eldest son Gary Jacobs is the head of the board of the Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High Charter School
Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High Charter School
Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High Charter School, often referred to as High Tech High , is a public charter high school in :San Diego, California...
. Jacobs's grandson, Adam Jacobs, is a former catcher of the Cornell University baseball team.
Philanthropy
As the co-founder and chairman of QualcommQualcomm
Qualcomm is an American global telecommunication corporation that designs, manufactures and markets digital wireless telecommunications products and services based on its code division multiple access technology and other technologies. Headquartered in San Diego, CA, USA...
, Irwin M. Jacobs has had the opportunity to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to the field of education through generous donations and grants to several schools and organizations. His donations have gone mostly towards fellowships and scholarships for deserving students in the fields of engineering and computer science, as well as the arts, and are focused in the San Diego area. The San Diego Union Tribune in 2011 dubbed him the "Philanthropist in Chief".
As of September of 2009, Jacobs had donated a total of $31 million to his post graduate degrees school the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
. He had donated $15 million and another $110 million to the University of California
University of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
at San Diego where he was a professor of computer science and engineering for several years. Additionally he has donated $62 million total to the American Society for Technion, his alma mater Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, KPBS Radio
KPBS-FM
KPBS-FM is a non-commercial public radio station licensed to San Diego State University, broadcasting in San Diego on 89.5 MHz, 89.1 MHz K206AC in La Jolla, and on 97.7 MHz KQVO in Calexico, Imperial County. The station is affiliated with National Public Radio, with programming...
and Television, and San Diego Natural History Museum
San Diego Natural History Museum
The San Diego Natural History Museum was founded in 1874 as the San Diego Society of Natural History. The present location of the museum in San Diego's Balboa Park was dedicated on January 14, 1933....
. His KPBS donation was in the sum of $1 million, and the multi-year gift is designed to strengthen the station's local journalism and news collaboration with NPR. The Jacobs have donated funds to build studios for KPBS and have supported the station for decades. In 2010 he funded an engineering study on how to fulfill a long-planned proposal to remove automobiles from the Plaza de Panama in San Diego's Balboa Park
Balboa Park (San Diego)
Balboa Park is a urban cultural park in San Diego, California. The park is named after the Spanish maritime explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa...
and agreed to chair a committee to study the proposal and develop private funding for it.
Irwin Jacobs has pledged $120 million for the San Diego Symphony
San Diego Symphony
The San Diego Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in San Diego, California. On 6 December 1910, it gave its first concert as the San Diego Civic Orchestra.Currently, the Symphony performs over 100 concerts each season...
, a similar amount for the Jacobs School of Engineering
Jacobs School of Engineering
The Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego is an undergraduate and graduate-level engineering school offering Bachelors of Science , Master of Engineering , Master of Science , and Doctorate degree programs...
at the University of California San Diego, $75 million for UCSD's future specialty hospital and $20 million to replace the central library in downtown San Diego. Also in 2005 the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Center for La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse
La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre-in-residence on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. -Background:...
was named after Jacobs and his wife in honor of their philanthropic contributions towards the institution's development.
The Giving Pledge
In August of 2010, Irwin and Joan Jacobs joined the Giving Pledge, pledging to give away most of their fortune to philanthropy. The Giving Pledge consists of around 40 AmericaUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
billionaires who have agreed to pledge 50 percent or more of their wealth to philanthropic causes. As of 2010, 50 percent of Jacob's wealth would equal $600 million. As part of the pledge, the Jacobses will choose which charities they would like to donate at least 50 percent of their estate to.