WiFi Technology

WiFi technology owes its global standardization to Dutch engineer Vic Hayes, who chaired the IEEE 802.11 committee for over a decade. Hayes’s leadership produced the 1997 standard, which achieved a data rate of 2 Mbps—50 times faster than the average wired home connection of its era. This foundational protocol remains the bedrock of modern wireless networking, enabling connectivity for over 20 billion devices worldwide. While ranked #2 on this list, its impact on daily communications is arguably more pervasive than even the cassette tape (ranked #3), as it eliminates physical media entirely.