Joe Koenig

Joseph (Joe) Koenig (born August 14, 1930) is a Canadian filmmaker and entrepreneur who was the founder and president of Electronics Workbench.

Koenig was born in Dresden, Germany; his family fled Nazi Germany in 1937, emigrating to Canada and settling on a 145 acre farm along the Grand River, outside what is now known as Cambridge, Ontario.

His older brother Wolf Koenig was also a filmmaker.

Koenig began his career as a filmmaker in 1956 at the National Film Board of Canada (NFB).

He directed and/or produced 52 films, including Cosmic Zoom, Christopher's Movie Matinée and The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes.

Mathematics at Your Fingertips (1961)

The Climates of North America (1962)

Jet Pilot (1964)

Among his numerous honours, he won two BAFTA awards, for Energy and Matter (1966) and The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes (1968).

Energy and Matter (1966)

Flowers on a One-way Street (1967)

Imperial Sunset (1967)

Christopher's Movie Matinee (1968)

Cosmic Zoom (1968)

The Rise and Fall of the Great Lakes (1968)

Bing Bang Boom (1969)

Falling from Ladders (1969)

What is Life? (1970)

He left the NFB in 1971 and, with colleagues John Kemeny, George Kaczender and Don Duprey, formed International Cinemedia Center Productions, where he produced educational films and animated content for clients in Canada and the United States, including the celebrated educator Caleb Gattegno.

In 1978, International Cinemedia became Alliance Communications (which would become Alliance Atlantis).

Koenig left the firm, moved from Montreal to Toronto in and founded Interactive Image Technologies.

At the NFB, he had become keenly interested in using multimedia as an educational tool, and focused on producing and distributed educational animated and interactive content and videos.

In the early 1990s, there was considerable opposition among the electronics education community regarding the use of simulation software for the delivery of electronics curriculum.

Many educators felt that a "hands on" methodology was the only valid method of learning electronics, and that simulation was a less-effective substitute.

In 1992, the Ontario Government modified its high school curriculum to require the teaching of electronics.

A call for proposals to provide a simulation software package to meet the required learning outcomes was issued, and Koenig’s company was awarded the contract.

In 1995, Koenig became embroiled in a copyright lawsuit that gained international attention.

He sued the operator of a website that distributed illegal copies of his software through a bulletin-board and was successful in his lawsuit, which was filed in the UK.

One of the main challenges faced by early versions of Electronics Workbench, was the reluctance of educators to use simulation software as part of their electronics curriculum.

In 1996, Koenig approached best-selling author Dr. Colin Simpson, with the idea of integrating his simulation software with Simpson’s book Principles of Electronics and to offer an Electronics technician program where the entire learning outcomes for laboratory projects would be achieved with simulation.

Simpson and Koenig embarked on a series of lectures, conference presentations and meetings with accrediting organizations throughout 1996, where they demonstrated that electronics simulation software could achieve identical results to laboratory experiments performed with real equipment.

The partnership between Koenig and Simpson led to the creation of the Electronics Technician distance education program, which became the largest electronics program in the world.

The program won a National Award in 1998, and established Electronics Workbench as a leading educational resource.

In 1999, Koenig oversaw the acquisition of Ultimate Technology Inc.

(UTI) located in the Netherlands.

The integration of Multisim with UTI’s PCB layout and design, transformed Koenig’s company into a global Electronic Design Automation (EDA) company with an installed base of over 150,000 customers.

By the year 2000, Koenig’s vision of laboratory simulation software in every school was largely realized and he began to take a more passive role in the strategic planning and day-to-day operation of his company.

He announced his retirement as Chief Executive Officer in 2003, and in 2005, Koenig sold his company to National Instruments.

An area of the Jalynn Bennett Amphitheatre, which opened in late May 2023 at Trent University's Catherine Parr Traill College, in Peterborough, Ontario, originally to have been called the "President's Booth," was named "Joe's Place," in Koenig's honour, following a donation by his daughter Anne.

National Film Board of Canada