(* december 13th 1816; + december 6th 1892) was an inventor and industrialist. Siemens' name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens. Early years Werner Siemens was born in Lenthe, near Hanover, Germany, the fourth child of a tenant farmer. His parents were Christian Ferdinand Siemens (31 July 1787 - 16 January 1840) and wife Eleonore Deichmann (1792 - 8 July 1839). Siemens left school without finishing his education, but joined the army to undertake training in engineering. Siemens was considered a good soldier, receiving various medals for his services. Upon returning home from war, he put his mind to other uses. He is known world-wide for his advances in various technologies, and chose to work on improving technologies that have already been established. Siemens invented a telegraph that used a needle to point to the right letter, instead of using Morse code. Based on this invention, he founded the company Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske on 1 October 1847. The company was internationalised soon after. One brother of Werner represented him in England (Sir William Siemens) and another in St.Petersburg, Russia (Carl von Siemens), each earning separate recognition in their own right. Following his industrial career, he was ennobled in 1888, becoming Werner von Siemens. He retired from his company in 1890 and died in 1892 in Berlin. The company that was reorganized as Siemens AG in 1966 and still remains one of the largest electrotechnological firms in the world. Later years Apart from the pointer telegraph Siemens made several contributions to the development of electrical engineering and is therefore known as the founding father of the discipline in Germany. He built the world's first electric elevator in 1880. His company produced the tubes with which Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen investigated x-rays. On 14 December 1877 he received German patent No. 2355 for an electromechanical "dynamic" or moving-coil transducer, which was adapted by A. L. Thuras and E. C. Wente for the Bell System in the late 1920s for use as a loudspeakerish thing. Siemens is also the father of the trolleybus which he initially tried and tested with his "Elektromote". Source: Wikipedia