Mitch Altman

Mitch Altman (born December 22, 1956) is a Berlin-based hacker and inventor, best known for inventing TV-B-Gone, as featured speaker at hacker conferences, as international expert on the hackerspace movement, and for teaching introductory electronics workshops. He is also Chief Scientist and CEO of Cornfield Electronics.

Early life and education

Altman grew up in Rogers Park, Chicago, Illinois. After kindergarten his family moved to Highland Park, Illinois. Altman graduated from Deerfield High School (Illinois) in 1975.
Altman is an alumnus of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he earned an undergraduate degree (1980) and a master's degree (1984) in electrical engineering. While at the University of Illinois, Altman co-organized the first Hash Wednesday in Champaign-Urbana in 1977.Chicago Tribune, April 18th, 1985, "Hazy Tradition Aims High, Man", Kevin Davis
/ref>
/ref>
Altman moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1986 to work in Silicon Valley.

VPL Research, 3ware, Cornfield Electronics, Maker Faire

Altman was an early developer of Virtual Reality technologies, working at VPL Research with Jaron Lanier.PBS.ORG, Digging Deeper: TV-B-Gone device shuts down public tvs
/ref> In addition to Lanier, Altman worked alongside about 15 other individuals. Altman left VPL Research in protest when it accepted contracts with the United States Department of Defense.YouTube, Nov 17, 2019, Mitch Altman - The Pros and Cons of Tech. Can We Design Tech that Serves Humanity?
/ref>

Altman co-founded Silicon Valley start-up 3ware in February 1997 with J. Peter Herz and Jim MacDonald (who is on the advisory board of Cornfield Electronics).Rubinstein, Dan (2005)
Mitch Altman
, '' Out'', December 2005, p. 157. Retrieved November 20, 2013

Altman started Cornfield Electronics as a consulting company. After the launch of TV-B-Gone Altman gave the company the tagline "We make Useful Electronics for a Better World".Cornfield Electronics.com About US
/ref>

Following extensive involvement in the " Maker" movement and ''Make'' magazine, including being featured in a ''Make'' magazine April Fool's Day prank,http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/04/car-b-gone-mitch-altman%E2%80%99s-newest-universal-remote.html April 1, 2011, Make Magazine Blog Altman publicly parted ways with the Maker Faire in 2012 after the Maker Faire accepted contracts with the United States Department of Defense."The Pentagon competes for Hacker Hearts and Minds", Sabine Blanc, April 10th, 2012, Owni.eu
/ref>

TV-B-Gone

In 2004 Altman released a one-button universal remote control called TV-B-Gone, to be used for turning off TVs in public places.Wheat, Dale (2011) ''Arduino Internals'', Apress Academic, , pp. 183-4 Altman used money from the sale of 3ware to pay for the manufacture of the first 20,000 units of TV-B-Gone.Wired Magazine, October 19th, 2004, "Inventor Rejoices as TVs go dark"
/ref> By February 2014, he was reported to have sold more than 500,000 units.
/ref> He is currently selling the TV-B-Gone generation 4. He also invented a new product called the TV-B-Gone SHP (Super High Power).

Other activities

Mitch Altman is an important figure in the international "hackerspace" and "maker" movements. While attending the 2007 Berlin Chaos Communication Camp, Altman and Jacob Appelbaum began discussing the idea of a San Francisco hackerspace, at which time there were no hackerspaces in the United States.Make Magazine, May 22nd, 2013, "The Difference between Hackerspaces, Makerspaces, Techshops and Fablabs, Fourth Paragraph
/ref> In October 2008 he co-founded Noisebridge,Minutes from the founding meeting of Noisebridge
/ref>"DIY Freaks Flock to ‘Hacker Spaces’ Worldwide", by Dylan Tweney, Wired Magazine, March 2009
/ref> which was probably the third hackerspace formed in the US.Baichtal, John (2011) ''Hack This: 24 Incredible Hackerspace Projects from the DIY Movement'', QUE, , p. 54 Since then, Altman has traveled extensively, encouraging the formation of hackerspaces, holding panels and workshops on depression,Altman: The Hacker Lifestyle", Owni.eu, May 2012
/ref>
/ref> teaching introductory electronics workshops to people of all ages and visiting electronics enthusiast groups around the world.UIUC Program of Allen Hall Artist in Residence, inter alia
/ref>
/ref> TedX Brussels invited Altman to give a Ted Talk the Hackerspace movement,Mitch Altman at TEDxBrussels
/ref> ''Make'' magazine has referred to Altman as "the Johnny Appleseed of hackerspaces",Zine, 10 Best Hackerspace posts, December 28, 2011
/ref> and Altman, who
has also written for the magazine, was awarded the first "Maker Hero" award—named in his honor—by Make Magazine on May 20, 2011.Make Magazine, description of the "Makey" awards
/ref>Make Magazine, Author profiles
/ref>

In September 2018, Altman announced that he had left Noisebridge.Mitch Altman: I quietly left Noisebridge in May. I am no longer part of Noisebridge.
/ref>

References

External links

Audio of a talk given by Altman and Lady Ada on July 23, 2006 at HOPE Number Six

TV-B-Gone talk, Hack Your Life For Fun & Profit

Geeks & Depression panel at 28C3 hacker conference

TEDxBrussels talk on The Hackerspace Movement

TV-B-Gone at Cornfield Electronics, Inc.

Mitch Altman on Reddit, July 29th, 2012

{{DEFAULTSORT:Altman, Mitch
Living people
21st-century American inventors
Engineers from California
American chief executives
1956 births
Grainger College of Engineering alumni