Roland Moreno

He attended the Montaigne and Condorcet schools in Paris and passed the baccalauréat, but dropped out early, and described his education as "self taught" for the rest of his life.

[1] He successfully marketed a software system which merged dictionary words to create new product or brand names for companies.

Moreno claimed to have thought of the smart card concept in a dream, telling France Soir in a 2006 interview, "I came up with the idea in my sleep... To be honest, I'm a lazy bum and my productivity is on the feeble side.

[1] It took approximately eight years for Moreno's smart card to gain widespread use in France due to initial start-up costs.

Nine years later, the French consumer banking industry implemented Moreno's microchip on the Carte Bleue, a national debit card system.

"[2] In 2000, Moreno held a contest offering one million French francs to anyone who could break his security codes within 90 days; no one succeeded.

[3] Moreno wrote several books, including Théorie du Bordel Ambiant, a collection of his ideas and reflections.

He also authored books under the literary pseudonym Laure Dynateur, including a cookbook entitled L'Aide-Mémoire du Nouveau Cordon-bleu with more than 2,000 recipes.

[1] Moreno chose this pseudonym because, when pronounced, the name sounds like the French word for computer: l'ordinateur.

He was cast in the 1982 comedic film Les Sous-doués en vacances, directed by Claude Zidi, as a "mad inventor" character who invents a "love computer.