Emil Kolben (1st 11th 1862 - 3. 7. 1943) - Czech entrepreneur, electrical engineer and inventor. One of the founders of the company CKD. The experience garnered in the company of the American inventor Thomas Alva Edison, where he worked as chief engineer. In the US also met inventor Nikola Tesla, who inspired research in the field of alternating electric current.

Emil Kolben was born as the first of eight children in a family of small farmers in Str�n�ice near Prague. Extraordinary talent for technical courses has capitalized on studies at the real school in Prague and then, the German Technical University, which he graduated cum laude. In 1886 there gained a diploma mechanical and electrical engineer. Thanks Gerstner scholarship that has received the decision of the Bohemian Diet, went on study trips abroad. He passed through several European countries, and then went to the USA, where he got a job in the firm of Thomas Alva Edison in Shenectady in the State of New York. The famous inventor noticed a Kolbenov�ch abilities and appointed him his first assistant in the laboratory in West Orange, later chief engineer and head of the technical department of the company Edison Machine Works in Shenectady. Kolben became an expert on electrical rotating machines, which he also designed. In America also met with Serbian inventor Nikola Tesla, who also worked at Edison. Genius Tesla discovered and championed alternating current, Edison saw the prospect of direct current, which both scientists got into a dispute that resulted gauge. Kolben Tesla's ideas was intrigued and eventually gravitated to his vision of electrification of the world. After returning to Prague founded by electrical companies Kolben et al. (1896), which specialized in producing electric motors, generators and transformers AC. Like visions duel took place between Edison and Tesla in America, in Bohemia clashed Emil Kolben and Frantisek Krizik. When the turn of the century Prague announced a competition for the construction of the central plant, a major contract was happy just Kolben. The victory triggered a boom of its businesses and brought moral strengthening the company brand, which became a joint stock company.

With the financial support �ivnobanka diversified production and also expanded abroad. In 1911 Kolben in Prague was also visited by his former employer Thomas A. Edison.

After World War I merged the company with Kolbenova Czechomoravian machinery manufacturing (1921) to �eskomoravsk� -Kolben. Mergers continued in 1927: connecting Breitfeld & Danek Inc. was successful mechanical and electrical engineering concern �eskomoravsk�-Kolben-Danek (CKD). At the end of the thirties, the company had over 15,000 employees. After the outbreak of the Second World War, its production capacity utilized, the German armaments industry. Emil Kolben himself, because of his Jewish origin, 7. 6. 1943 deported to Terezin prison where 3 July the same year he died.