Irwin Mark Jacobs

Irwin Jacobs is founding chair and CEO emeritus of Qualcomm, a San Diego-based telecommunications company and chair emeritus of the board of trustees of the Salk Institute.

An engineer by training, Jacobs began his career as a professor of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He co-authored a textbook entitled Principles of Communication Engineering.

He is best known for co-founding Qualcomm and for business leadership of Qualcomm's successful efforts to establish innovative Code-Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology standards for second- and third- generation digital cellular telephony and data systems. Prior to Qualcomm, Jacobs co-founded Linkabit Corporation which was the information-theory technology company for more than a decade.

Jacobs is the recipient of many awards, including the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, the National Medal of Technology, the Medal of Honor from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and the Carnegie Medal of Philanthropy.