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Nolan Bushnell

Founder Atari

Mr. Bushnell is best known as the founder of Atari Corporation and Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theater, and is justifiably revered as the “Father of the Video Game Industry”. Over the past 20 years, he has founded numerous companies, including Catalyst Technologies, the first technology incubator; Etak, the first car navigation system whose mapping is still the basis for car navigation systems today; Androbot, a personal robotics company; and ByVideo, the first online ordering system (1982), which allowed customers to order and pay for product from kiosks.

Bushnell holds several patents on some of the basic technologies for many of the early video games developed and is also the inventor or co-inventor of numerous worldwide patents in various other fields and industries. Over the years, Bushnell has received numerous awards of distinction, including being named ASI’s “Man of the Year” in 1997, as well as being inducted into the “Video Game Hall of Fame”. In January 2000, Bushnell became one of the first 50 inductees into the Consumer Electronics Association’s “Hall of Fame”, which gave public recognition to his significant contributions to 20th Century technology, and was named one of Newsweek’s “50 Men That Changed America”. Bushnell is also highlighted as one of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial icons in “The Revolutionaries”, a historical view of Silicon Valley, which is part of the renowned Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. In March of 2009 Bushnell was honored with the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ Fellowship Award, the highest accolade the Academy bestows, for his outstanding creative contribution to the Video Games Industry.

And in June 2010 he was awarded the LARA Lifetime Achievement Award, presented to him by the German Games Award for his outstanding achievements in the International Games Industry. Currently a biopic about Bushnell, tentatively titled “Atari”, is in pre-production. The property was acquired by Paramount Pictures and is set to star Leonardo diCaprio. Bushnell received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah, where he is a “Distinguished Fellow”, and also attended Stanford University Graduate School. With a passion for enhancing and improving the educational process and a desire to motivate others, Bushnell frequently lectures at major universities and conferences throughout the United States, inspiring others with his views on entrepreneurship, creativity, innovation and education.