Eric Tigerstedt
Engineer
The "Thomas Edison of Finland" who, in the process of making the world's first talking picture, also greatly improved the vacuum tube, a key component in electronics. He received a total of 71 patents during his long career.
Seeing a Lumiere brothers' silent film inspired him to think how much better it would be with recorded sound.
He miraculously predicted cellular telephones over 70 years before they were invented when, in 1917, he filed a patent for what he described as a "pocket-size folding telephone with a very thin carbon microphone."
A dispute with his father caused him to leave home at age 15.
He took Lee DeForest's vacuum tube and improved it enough to handle speakers.