Martine Kempf

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Martine Kempf (born December 9, 1958 in Strasbourg ) is a French entrepreneur and inventor of a speech recognition system that converts spoken commands into control impulses for machines, for example to control a wheelchair, a car or a surgical microscope in microsurgery.

youth

Part of her schooling took place at a Waldorf school in the Ruhr area in Herne - the Hibernia School - because the secondary school in Strasbourg attended by her brothers was not yet accepting girls. Martine speaks three languages ​​and plays the musical instruments piano, violin and bassoon. She graduated from high school in 1980 at the "Lycée français" in Athens .

Live and act

She studied astronomy at the University of Bonn and developed a speech recognition system for the physically handicapped in her spare time, parallel to her studies at the age of 23 . She called it Katalavox (from the Greek root katal = understand and the Latin word vox = voice).

In the spring of 1984 Martine was invited by Siemens , together with the Federal Ministry for Research and Technology, to Japan to present their invention at the "German Industry Exhibition". A Mercedes 190E was equipped with the Katalavox for disabled drivers and around 50 electrical functions such as opening the driver's door, operating the indicators, horn, lighting, windshield wipers, the automatic system and the radio were now voice-controlled.

Also in 1984, the first voice-controlled wheelchair was used by a law student in Norway, allowing him to attend lectures independently.

In December 1984 the "Fondation Rothschild" in Paris also had the first operation with the use of the Katalavox on the surgical microscope by Prof. Dr. Danièle Aron-Rosa took place.

In October 1985 Martine Kempf went to California and founded her company Kempf-Katalavox in Sunnyvale . Her move to the United States in November 1985 led to a parliamentary question from Member of Parliament Adrien Zeller to the then Minister for Industrial Development Édith Cresson .

Awards and recognitions

  • 1987 - her hometown Dossenheim-Kochersberg near Strasbourg named a street after her "Rue Martine Kempf" (and at that time she was only 28 years old)
  • 2016 - "1er prix au concours Lépine régional" at the European fair in Strasbourg as a reward for the facilities for disabled people installed in a Ford C-Max.

literature

  • Kempf, Martine. In: Who's Who in the World 1991–1992. Wilmette (IL) 1990, p. 559.
  • Kempf, Martine. In: Who's Who of American Women 21 (1999-2000). New Providence (NJ) 1998, p. 548.
  • Martine Kempf. In: Carol Einstein: Claims to Fame. Twelve Short Biographies. Cambridge (MA) 1999, pp. 80-87.
  • Kempf, Martine (b.1958). In: Linda Zierdt-Warshaw, Alan Winkler, Leonard Bernstein: American Women in Technology. To Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara (CA) 2000, p. 167.
  • Jean-Marie Quelqueger: Kempf, Martine. In: Nouveau dictionnaire de biographie alsacienne 46 (Supplément KM), 2006, p. 4728.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kempf, Martine. In: Who's Who in the World 1991–1992. Wilmette (IL) 1990, p. 559; Kempf, Martine. In: Who's Who of American Women 21 (1999-2000). New Providence (NJ) 1998, p. 548.
  2. ↑ Autumn Stanley, Mothers and daughters of the invention. Notes for a revised history of technology. New Brunswick (NJ) 1995, p. 489.
  3. ↑ a b Women in research and technology introduce themselves. Retrieved June 2, 2012.
  4. ↑ a b c d Company Kempf-Katalavox in Sunnyvale, former website www.katalavox.com, as archived version accessed on February 29, 2020.
  5. ↑ s. a. Martine Kempf dossier ( Assemblée Nationale , Débats Parlememtaires, 7e Législature, 2e séance du mercredi 6 novembre 1985). In: Journal Officiel de la République Française 84 [2] A. N. v. 7 November 1985, pp. 3980f. ( PDF ).
  6. ↑ Martine Kempf primée , accessed on February 29, 2020 ( [1] ).
personal data
SURNAME Kempf, Martine
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French entrepreneur and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Strasbourg