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Education is the wellspring of innovation, according to Mike Lazaridis, who put wireless e-mail on the map with the Blackberry in 1999.
A high school teacher fueled an enthusiasm for wireless electronics when he told the young Lazaridis he could open up any box of equipment in the teacher's new electronics shop as long as he read the manual first. "I read a lot of manuals that year, and opened up every single box," Lazaridis recalled.
As a student at the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Lazaridis became immersed in networks and e-mail at a time when the business world was still sending memos by telex. In 1984, while still a college student, he founded Research In Motion. RIM helped Ericsson deliver its Viking Express wireless e-mail product, based on a Hewlett-Packard palmtop computer and an Ericsson wireless modem. After several more iterations and help from Intel, RIM finally shrank the concept to the size of an overgrown pager. In 1999, the unit was linked to Microsoft Exchange and named Blackberry. The device is now carried by 4 million mobile users.
Today RIM occupies a 40-acre campus adjacent to the University of Waterloo. In 2000, Lazaridis made a hefty donation to his alma mater to fund a new institute for theoretical physics. In 2003, he was named the university's eighth chancellor.
"People underestimate the value of universities in bringing students up to speed with technologies that won't hit the mainstream for another decade or two," said Lazaridis.
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