Adams won seven Emmy awards as a result of his work connected with the Olympics for NBC.

"Matt did not let norms or ‘never been done before’ slow him down,"NBC’s former chief technical officer David Mazza said. 

"His influence helped us innovate and implement most of our best ideas. We truly could not have done all that we did without Matt’s amazing unbridled imagination."

Larry Kaplan, President and chief executive of leading media supply chain management and optimization platform SDVI offered his own tribute. "Anyone who had the good fortune to know Matt will tell you that he was a selfless genius, a truly extraordinary, unique individual,"

At the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, Adams built transportable satellite equipment services which helped ABC network televise the Olympics.

By the end of the decade, he had designed and put into service the first all-serial digital television facility for The Christian Science Monitor.

In 2002, he developed a file base system for NBC which enabled them operate remotely.

He later devised systems for CNN.

At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, the technology devised by Adams made it possible for NBC to employ some 200 staff in New York City during the Games.

Adams was born in Redwood City in California and was already a pioneer of advanced television technology by his his twenties.

He ran his own consultancies and companies and worked with many of the leading broadcast operations.

Friends have said that there will be no formal service but that a series of gatherings are planned for those who knew him to gather in his memory.