| Milan Hudecek | |
| Birth Date: | 1954 1, df=yes |
Milan Hudecek (pron. who-de-check, born 9 January 1954) is a Czech-born Australian inventor and entrepreneur. He pioneered the fields of assistive technology for the blind (in particular computing for the blind) and radio communications (in particular software-defined radios). He is a Member of the Order of Australia, winner of the Winston Gordon Award for Technological Advancement in the Field of Blindness and Visual Impairment, and Rolls-Royce & Qantas Award of Engineering Excellence.
Founder (1983) and managing director of the Melbourne based Australian Export Award-winning Robotron Group, Hudecek is credited with the invention of the world's first computer for the blind, the Eureka A4,[1] and a number of other assistive products such as reading machines for the blind.[2]
Hudecek is also the founder (1991) of the Australian company radixon Group[3] (formerly Rosetta Laboratories), specializing in various radio communications equipment, in particular software-defined radio. The company's first product was "WiNRADiO" – a wide-band communications receiver on a PC card, the first such product of its kind. An article describing early WiNRADiO products appeared in 1998 in Wired magazine.[4] Radixon Group now sells its computer-controlled radio communications receivers and associated hardware and software under the brand name WiNRADiO.
In the 1997 Australia Day Honours Hudecek was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his "service to people with disabilities through the invention of a laptop computer and other technology for use by people who are blind or partially sighted".[5]