Mike Lazaridis

Mike Lazaridis was born on March 14, 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey, to Pontic Greek parents, Nick and Dorothy Lazaridis, Mike Lazaridis' lineage derives from the Greek island of Chios. In 1966, when he was five years old, his family moved to Canada, settling in Windsor, Ontario. At age 12, he won a prize at the Windsor Public Library for reading every science book in the library.

In 1979, Lazaridis enrolled at the University of Waterloo in electrical engineering, with "an option in" computer science. In 1984, after successfully garnering funding for a commercial idea, he dropped out of university (two months before he was scheduled to graduate).

In 1984, Lazaridis, while still a student, responded to a general call for proposals from General Motors (GM) to develop a "network computer control display system". GM awarded him a contract in response to his proposal. He dropped out of university, and with the GM contract, plus a small government grant and a loan from Lazaridis's parents, Mike Barnstijn, Douglas Fregin and he launched Research in Motion (RIM), the company whose assets are now managed as BlackBerry Limited.

One of RIM's first achievements was the development of barcode technology for film. It reinvested the profits from that product into wireless data transmission research, eventually leading to the introduction of the BlackBerry wireless mobile device in 1999, and its better-known version in 2002. Lazaridis would serve in various positions for RIM and BlackBerry, including as co-chairman and co-CEO of BlackBerry from 1984 to 2012, and Board Vice Chair and Chair of the Innovation Committee from 2012 to 2013.

In 1999, Lazaridis parted with a third of his fortune (at the time), to provide CA$100M to establish an academic research enterprise focused on theoretical physics, thereafter named the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, for which he formed a Board, and recruited Howard Burton as its first Director. He would also serve as Perimeter's board chair. In 2002, he provided the vision and funds that led to founding of the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo (UW), under UW faculty member, Raymond Laflamme. He has also served as a chancellor of the University of Waterloo. In June 2003, he was named UW's eighth chancellor.

Lazaridis co-founded Quantum Valley Investments in March 2013 with RIM co-founder Douglas Fregin, to "provide financial and intellectual capital for the further development and commercialization of breakthroughs in Quantum Information Science".

In 1999, Lazaridis is reported to have donated a third of his fortune (at the time) to provide CA$100M to establish an academic research enterprise focused on theoretical physics, thereafter named the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (a founding sum that would grow over the years). Lazaridis and his wife Ophelia provided the vision and funding—a further $100M over its lifetime—to found the Institute for Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo, under its 2002 founding executive director, Raymond Laflamme.

In 2015, Lazaridis donated $20M to Wilfrid Laurier University, for a new technology-focused management institute at the business school, which was renamed in his honour as the Lazaridis School of Business & Economics.

Lazaridis and his wife Ophelia have also been noted for their philanthropic work in the Waterloo area; in 2018, they donated ten million dollars to the Stratford Festival for the reconstruction of the Tom Patterson Theatre.