Mike Lazaridis

Mike Lazaridis, OC, FRS (born March 14, 1961) is a Canadian businessman who co-founded Research In Motion (now BlackBerry Limited), the company that created and manufactured the BlackBerry wireless handheld device. He has gone on to become a major supporter of Canadian academic physics and an investor in quantum computing technologies.

While yet a student at the University of Waterloo (UW), Lazaridis responded to a 1984 call for proposals from General Motors, and after winning a GM contract, he left university, and with those and other funds, he, Mike Barnstijn, and Douglas Fregin launched Research in Motion (RIM). RIM first developed an award-winning barcode technology for use in the film industry; using those profits it researched wireless data transmission, leading to introduction of BlackBerry wireless mobile devices (1999–2002). Lazaridis would serve in various positions for RIM and BlackBerry, including co-CEO and co-chair of its board (1984–2012).

After a period of charitable and leadership roles, founding science research organizations (see following), Lazaridis joined Fregin in co-founding Quantum Valley Investments in March 2013, to "provide financial and intellectual capital for the further development and commercialization of breakthroughs in Quantum Information Science".

Among many other charitable contributions of Lazaridis and his wife, Ophelia, Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin also facilitated a private fund of CA$100M in 1999 to establish the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (he, thereafter, formed its Board and recruited its first Director), and his providing vision and funding to found the UW's Institute for Quantum Computing, including funding the advanced science building that hosts the institute.

Lazaridis has repeatedly been recognized for technical and societal contribution, including via an Emmy and an Oscar for the high-speed barcode reader used in film editing (1994 and 1999, respectively), honorary doctoral degrees from Waterloo and McMaster University (2000 and 2005, respectively), a 2002 Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation Innovation Award (with RIM's Gary Mousseau), investiture as an Officer of the Order of Canada (OC, 2006), and, in acknowledgment of his roles in founding RIM, the Perimeter, and the IQC, his 2014 election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).