Rwanda: Happy Birthday, Dear Cell-Phone!

opinion

As I write this, you'll most probably be having that omnipresent gadget on your ear, or you'll be "fingering" it. And, again most probably, you'll be oblivious to the fact that the gadget has been around for a long time. In case you haven't yet cottoned on, the gadget to which I make reference is the mobile telephone, cellular, cell, hand phone or whatever moniker you prefer to assign to it.

And it saw the light of day on 3rd April 1973. Scientists had been working on the idea for a long time, especially in USA, until John F. Mitchell, Motorolla's chief of portable communication products, made a breakthrough in 1973. Martin Cooper, who was in Mitchell's team, remembers sophisticated New Yorkers gaping at the sight of him making a call while walking in the street on that day, 3rd April.

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