Geelen and Pauwels, TomTom co-founders
Position: 47 Last year: 42
Why? For giving computer devices a sense of direction
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Pieter Geelen and Peter-Frans Pauwels started out by founding Palmtop, a company that developed applications for the first generation of handheld computers. They then moved on to in-car satellite navigation - or sat-nav, for anyone who has sat in a darkened room for the past two years.
The duo was praised by the judges last year for making their sat-nav products affordable to consumers. In the past 12 months, the technology has moved on from mere navigation to fully-fledged location-based services.
Various projects are under way, from directing hungry night-owls to the nearest takeaway pizza shop to urban traffic management on a city-wide scale.
Geelen and Pauwels may not be spearheading all of these developments but TomTom has unarguably created the awareness that has driven demand for these types of services.
That the company celebrated its 10 millionth sale in May is a testament to its co-founders' achievement. Because of that success, Geelen and Pauwels are still ensuring that sat-nav sits high on the IT agenda.
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Content featuring Geelen and Pauwels
Pieter Geelen and Peter-Frans Pauwels debut on the Agenda Setters list for their pioneering work on the TomTom car navigation systems that finally settle all those map-reading arguments. Geelen and Pauwels both graduated from the University of...
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