Laila Ohlgren

Ragnhild Laila Lillemor Ohlgren (née Andersson; 19 November 1937 – 6 January 2014) was a Swedish telecommunications engineer who is seen as the developer of mobile telephony together with Östen Mäkitalo, both engineers at Telia. In particular, she successfully introduced storage of the telephone number to be dialed in the phone's microprocessor so that connection could be achieved by pressing the call button. This avoided transmission breakages caused by obstacles such as trees during more lengthy traditional dialing. The approach was subsequently adopted worldwide. For her efforts, in 2009 she became the first woman to be awarded the Polhem Prize for technical innovation.