Don't judge a book by it's cover

When I am fast I make you fly

When I am slow your kids will cry

I travel low

I travel high

I even travel through the sky

Can you guess what am I?

This is the story about an incredible woman called Hedy Lemarr who pioneered the technology behind WiFi.

It’s all around us.. it’s the basis of so much of what we do and how we live. Think about what happens when WiFi is out in your house ?

Now did you know that the same underlying technology that powers WiFi also powers other things we rely on like GPS or Bluetooth ?

All of these technologies I mention above use a form of data transmission known as ??“FHSS” or frequency hopping spread spectrum. Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) transmission is the repeated switching of the carrier?frequency?during radio transmission to reduce interference and avoid interception.

I like to think of it much more simply with an example. Let's start with a 2-way radio (sometimes also called a Walkie Talkie) in our example. A 2-way is a little hand held device you often see children or hikers or police use to communicate. They come in pairs when you buy them. They have a dial that you can turn to select the channel you want to broadcast your message on and anyone else with a 2-way radio who is on the same channel will hear whatever you say.

Imagine you and a friend each had a 2-way radio with 16 channels. You could agree that you would exchange a secret message on channel 8 at 8pm. If you conversation was short enough someone else with a 2 way would be lucky to stumble on your channel at 8pm, but someone determined to hear you could have sixteen 2-way radios all tuned in on channel 1 through to 16. They would then hear your conversation. ?You and your friend could get crafty and agree that you will split your secret into single words and broadcast each word at 8am, 11am, 3pm, 5pm and 9pm on channel 1, 3, 7. 9 and 13 respectively.?Now someone listening to all channels would get one word only and if there’s other traffic on those channels as well it would be very hard to figure out what you were saying.

Now imagine you had a computer or mechanical device changing the 2-way radio channels for you rapidly, multiple times a second it would be near impossible for anyone who didn’t know the exact sequence to decipher this message.

Well that’s what FHSS is… Frequency-hopping spread spectrum.

What’s this got to do with International Women’s day Chris I hear you ask ?

On August 11th, 1942 a Hollywood actress called Hedy Lemar along with music composer George Antheil filed a patent called “Secret Communications systems”. What they invented was one of the earliest frequency hopping, spread-spectrum communication systems.

They designed it to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect or jam and used a piano roll synchronised on each end of transmitter and receiver to change the frequency of the signal in time with each other so that the signal could not be jammed or blocked.

Hedy was considered one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood and certainly wasn’t known at first for her brilliant mind.

By chance she met the eccentric creator and inventor Howard Hughes. Howard could clearly see past the Hollywood fa?ade and stereotype. Hughes supported her inquisitive mind. He provided her with small equipment to use in her trailer on set. Lemar had an inventing table set up in her house and the small set allowed Lamar to continue to work on inventions between takes while on movie sets. Hughes shared his passion for science with Lemar and took her to his airplane factories, showed her how the planes were built. Lemar designed her own versions of aircraft wings as ideas for Hughes and he was known to state she was genius.

The story goes that Hedy met George Antheil at a dinner party in 1940 and the 2 shared a common interest in invention and creativity. The 2 of them started collaborating on how they could contribute to the war effort and stop the evil axis. Their spread spectrum frequency hopping system was a result of this collaboration. She and Antheil donated their patent to the US Navy and never received a cent from their invention.

While Lemar and Antheil did not directly invent what we now know as WiFi (That was invented by Australians at the CSIRO research labs – your welcome rest of the world) The spread spectrum hopping was a fundamental building block to enabling the creation of WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Lemar was clearly a genius with a brilliant mind and sometimes it just takes that little bit of support, help or encouragement to ensure a brilliant mind has the safe space to flourish, be heard and is encouraged to do so.

So the challenge for all of us to encourage everyone.. give them room to grow. Ignite that spark of passion and watch it burn bright.

Who knows…the next Hedy Lemar might be working with you right now ?