On 29 April 2010, the Franklin Institute held its ceremony in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to honor Gerhard Sessler and James West with Franklin Institute medals for their invention of the practical electret microphone. The day before the ceremony, a symposium took place at Temple University in which Dr. Flanagan summarized some of the history of the electret microphone. In his talk, Dr. Flanagan shared his perspective on invention of the device that is a commodity nowadays and how the initial incentive was telephony.
Later, Dr.