Wendell Brown is an American computer scientist, entrepreneur and inventor best known for his innovations in telecommunications and Internet technology, cybersecurity, and smartphone app development.

Brown has stated of his upbringing in the Appalachian region, "I'm proud of my West Virginia heritage, where my family tree has deep roots dating back to the founding of our nation, and I treasure many memories from times spent in the lush countryside of my parents' hometowns.

After departing Imagic, Brown began a career as an independent computer scientist, founding Hippopotamus Software, known commercially as “Hippo,” in Sunnyvale, California.

[17][18] Between 1984 and 1986, Hippo published more than two dozen software programs for the Macintosh and Atari ST including games, audio and visual editing, word processing, almanacs, spelling checkers, database managers, and a utility for creating personalized sprites and fonts.

[22] ADAP was used to create and edit soundtracks of Hollywood movies and TV shows, including The Simpsons, Twin Peaks, Die Hard, Born on the Fourth of July, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.

[23] ADAP was also used by recording artists Peter Gabriel, Fleetwood Mac, The Pointer Sisters, Mötley Crüe, David Bowie, and Nirvana among others for sound effects and digital music editing.

[38][39][40] eVoice developed techniques such as voicemail-to-email, visual voicemail, and enhanced caller ID,[41] innovations that are considered some of the earliest "apps," and which were later deployed by Google Voice and Apple.

[46] Brown went on to co-found another communications company, Teleo, in 2005,[47] an early competitor of Skype, where he created VoIP applications enabling users to send and receive phone calls over the Internet.

[49] In 2015, Brown started the San Francisco and New York City-based cybersecurity company Averon, which develops frictionless identity solutions based on mobile technologies.

[50] Averon presented a verified location concept on the main stage of the global TED Conference in 2016, and introduced its Direct Autonomous Authentication (DAA) mobile security technology in 2018.

[citation needed] Brown has created dozens of U.S. and internationally patented inventions in the fields of cybersecurity, telecommunications, virtual workforce, electric vehicles, LED lighting, 3D cameras, renewable fuels, online music distribution, and mobile phone apps including WebDiet, a method of using mobile phones to count food consumption to improve health.

[55][56] As a Silicon Valley angel investor, Brown has also been involved in funding notable startup companies including Appeo, ADISN,[57] MOEO,[58] and IronPort,[59] which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2007 for US$830 million.