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Mike Lazaridis : The Canadian Entrepreneur & the Co-Inventor of BlackBerry

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A lover of science and a visionary innovator, Mike Lazaridis, is the one, who is known as the father of Smartphones, in the global wireless community. A science lover and a philanthropist, he is the true supporter of the power of basic science to improve and transform the world. With the development of wireless technology, Lazaridis changed the world of communication to an extent. He is one of the most influential people of the world, who have contributed and are continuously contributing to the betterment of the world with their inventions.

Early life

Lazaridis was born on 14 March 1961, in Istanbul, Turkey. His parents belonged to the Pontic Greek dialect, who later moved to Canada, in 1966, when Lazaridis was just five years of age. The family settled down in Windsor, Ontario, where he found his first love, i.e., Science, in the Windsor Public Library. He loved reading the scientific facts and was fascinated by how things worked. His love for reading books led him to win an award, at the age of 12, for reading every science book in the Windsor Public Library. He was a science enthusiast and spent most of his childhood, in the basement of his house, assembling and building, rockets and radios, along with his friends. He even built buzzer for the popular game Reach For The Top, when he was in high school.

Founding RIM

In 1979, he entered the University of Waterloo, where he adopted electrical engineering with an option in computer science. But, only before two months of his graduation, he dropped out of the college, to found his company, Research In Motion (RIM), to fulfil a contract that he received from the General Motors, in 1984. The contract included the requirement for developing a network computer control display system. Lazaridis founded the company along with his friends Mike Barnstijn and Douglas Fregin, with the money Lazaridis’ parents had lent them through a loan. The company later developed barcode technology for a film, that was the greatest accomplishment for a newly set up company.

Mike Lazaridis
Image Source: www.wlu.ca

By 1988, RIM was the first North American wireless data technology developer company. It also developed connectivity products for Mobitex wireless packet-switched data communications networks, becoming the first company outside Scandinavia, to do so.

The company was involved in emerging wireless technology and in the year 1999, it had scored many patents based on the same technology under its name. It had developed the DigiSync Film KeyKode Reader, Mobitex protocol converter, Mobitex point-of-sale solution, RIMGate Mobitex X.25 gateway, Freedom-Type II PCMCIA radio modem for Mobitex. In 1996, RIM developed the first two-way messaging pager, a competitor of Skytel two-way paging network developed by Motorola, that was named as Inter@ctive Pager.

BlackBerry the Smartphone Startup

In 1999, under the name of RIM, Lazaridis, developed the BlackBerry 850 pager. The device was based on the BlackBerry Enterprise Server, that could receive push email from a Microsoft Exchange Server. RIM, in April 2000, launched its first BlackBerry smartphone named as BlackBerry 957. The smartphone used the encryption and S/MIME, providing high security for the user data, making the phones popular in no time. The following smartphone range from RIM was also launched with the same prefix Blackberry, that became its trade name. The next smartphone launch included the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 (the first BlackBerry phone having multimedia features), Curve 8300 series and Bold 9000.

As in 2007, Apple launched iPhone and encouraged RIM to launch its first touchscreen phone, the BlackBerry Storm, launched in 2008. Till the fall of 2010, the company had 21 million BlackBerry users in the united states. The company also expanded worldwide having 79 million BlackBerry users globally. In 2012, Lazaridis and Balsillie became the co-CEOs of the company. Only after one year of Lazaridis’ joining as the co-CEO of RIM, he resigned on 28 March 2013 from his post.

Personal Life

Lazaridis is married to Ophelia, along with whom, he has participated in various philanthropy works. The two have donated money for various research works, like for the establishment of the Perimeter Institute for Research in Theoretical Physics, the Institute for Quantum Computing in the University of Waterloo, and establishing a building for Nanotechnology Engineering program, in the same university. He is one of the members of the board of governors of the University of Waterloo and served as the vice-chancellor of the university between 2003 to 2009.

Lazaridis was awarded an Academy Award and an Emmy Award for his technical achievements. In 1999, he received an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Waterloo.

The Journey of the World’s Largest Telecom Company

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at&t
Image Source: cbsistatic.com

Telecommunication industry is considered the most progressive industry in the world. In the past more than a hundred years, from its origin to until now, it has seen a radical change. The time changed, but the company that belonged to the inventor of the telephone, Graham Bell, is still standing strong as the leading multinational conglomerate holding company. AT&T known as the largest telecommunication company has its own part in the history of the development of the telecom industry.

Birth of AT&T

After the discovery of the telephone, Graham Bell founded a company named the Bell Telephone Company, in 1880. By 1885, the company evolved as the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, the AT&T Co. AT&T, later, acquired the Bell Telephone Company, in December 1899. It started getting a hold on the customers in Canada and the United States, resulting in AT&T’s monopoly in the telecommunication industry. This growing monopoly of AT&T provoked the US government to drag the company to the court for an antitrust challenge. Later, it was settled outside the court on the basis of the Kingsbury Commitment, resulting in the government-authorised monopoly with the name of Bells System. The merger continued for the entire 20th century. Also, the company became the largest telephone company in the world.

After continuing for over 80 years, in 1981, the government-authorised monopoly was dissolved by the US regulations and resulted in the origin of smaller companies, including the Southwestern Bell. All the smaller companies started due to the break-up of the monopoly were known as Regional Bell Operating Companies or Baby Bells. The breaking-up of the monopoly also resulted in a rise in competition for AT&T as other independent telecommunication companies, like MCI and Sprint also came into the business.

The new Southwestern Bell company was founded by Robert G. Pope, who led the company with some really successful acquisitions. The company not only worked in the telecommunication but also acquired some of the cable companies and entered into the business of cable connections. In 1990, the company was rebranded as SBC Communications. The success of the company led it to the list of top 500 Fortune companies, in 1999.

In 2005, the SBC Communications was rebranded again, as AT&T Co., after it acquired its previous parent company, AT&T, for $16 billion. It also retained the iconic logo and stock-trading symbol of older AT&T.

Current Status & Achievements

The AT&T’s acquisition was followed by the other important ones as well, including the Mexican carrier Iusacell (2014), NII Holdings (2014), DirecTV (2015), Time Warner (2016), etc. The DirecTV deal was worth $48.5 billion and AT&T spent $108.7 billion for the acquisition of Time Warner. By 2017, AT&T became the world’s largest telecommunications company and second largest provider of the mobile telephone. AT&T is also the largest provider of fixed telephone services in the United States.

Alan Mamedi : The Person Who Made the Phonebook of a Smartphone Smarter

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The telephone is the most useful invention by humans. The era changed and brought the revolution in the telephone industry, jumping from two-piece landlines to a chordless smartphone. But, one thing that was constant, the reception of blank calls and cold calls. Even at the time of landlines, people could not identify the caller, as there was no medium that could show the identity of the caller. But, yes, later on, the caller Ids, did help to an extent. However, it was still impossible to recognise the callers from the new numbers. The same problem remained in the time of the mobiles and smartphones as well. But, Alan Mamedi, a developer from Sweden, came to the rescue and gifted the much-awaited app Truecaller to the world.

Early Life

Mamedi was born on 30 October 1984, in an Iranian family. His mother was a Kurd, and his father was an Iranian political leader. After the Iranian revolution took place, his family brought him to Sweden. He was a bright student and completed a B.sc degree in Computer Science, from The Royal Institute of Technology, in Stockholm Sweden.

Alan Mamedi
Image Source: techinasia.com

After completing his education, Mamedi started working as a Salesman at The Phone House and stayed at the same company for two years. With an experience of two years and a graduate degree in Computer Science, Mamedi got inspired to start his own company. In 2006, Mamedi founded ‘Bidding.se’, an auction website, where the one with the lowest bid would win the auction. The website was a success, and Mamedi received an offer to sell it, within three months of its launch.

In 2007, Mamedi again came with another product, Möbeljakt.se, that became the largest search engine, working in Sweden, for the home interior. In 2008, he started working as the Chief Architect at Birdstep Technology and Företagsinformation i Mediaportalen, at the same position, for the next two years.

In 2009, Mamedi launched Jobbigt.se, an employer review website, known to be the biggest employer network in Sweden. Through the website, people could post reviews about their current or previous employers.

Founding Truecaller

After the launch of Jobbigt.se, Mamedi started receiving calls from those employers, who had got bad reviews on Jobbigt.se. The employers wanted Mamedi to delete those bad reviews as those were affecting their reputation.

This incident made Mamedi, think and discuss the matter with his old friend Nami Zarringhalam, as he was receiving unlimited calls regarding the same. The discussion also included the issue of increasing cold-calls, invading the privacy of people. At the time, there was no such software that could help in avoiding those kinds of calls and identify the new numbers. The two came to the conclusion that there must be a software that can handle those issues. The software must have a caller ID so that people could decide the priority of the call. With the intense discussion, Mamedi and Zarringhalam finally decided to create a new app; Truecaller.

On 1 July 2009, Mamedi released the initial version of Truecaller, under the name of his company True Software Scandinavia AB. The company was founded by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam in the same year and is situated in Stockholm, Sweden.

Initially, the app was launched for the BlackBerry smartphones, but due to huge success, it was also released for the Symbian and Microsoft Windows mobile phones. On 23 September 2009, the app became available for the iOS and Android phone users. By the year 2012, it was also launched for the RIM Blackberry, Windows Phone, and the Nokia Series 40, and it grew to five million global users in the same year.

Truecaller in 2012, received US$1.3 million funding from OpenOcean, a venture capital. In 2014, it also received an investment of $18.8 million from Sequoia Capital and $60 million from Niklas Zennstrom’s Atomico investment firm and from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Due to the increased user base in India, Truecaller also launched another app, exclusively for India, with name Truemessenger, that can identify the sender of a message.

Samaira Mehta : Little Fingers Running from Coding to Entrepreneurship

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samaira mehta
Image Source: Facebook

Most of the children, at the age of six, are adjusting with their school’s environment, some have still not joined the school yet, and some brilliant minds of the same age, are working towards excellence, and making their ways into the tech world. Such gifted kid, from the Silicon Valley, is a ten years old Samaira Mehta, who has been into the limelight for her invention, at the age of eight, becoming one of the youngest entrepreneurs and a powerful motivational speaker.

Samaira Mehta, an Indian-American girl, was born on 4 March 2008, to Rakesh Mehta and Monica Mehta. Her father works as an engineer at Intel Co., and her mother worked in the field of marketing for more than a decade. Samaira was just six years old when her father started teaching her programming. The bright Samaira developed an immense interest in the same and started practising it. According to one of her interviews, she loved doing coding and playing the board games. Love for the two brought her the idea of mixing both of them and creating a board game that could help the people of age from 4-104, to learn to code in an easier way.

When Samaira turned eight, she finally decided to transform her idea into reality and launched a board game, naming it the CoderBunnyz. The game became popular in no time, and hence, Samaira co-founded a company, with her mother, given the same name to it as the game.

samaira mehta
Image Source: indiawest.com

Little Samaira became a self-made entrepreneur at the tender age of eight. After the success of CoderBunnyz, she came out with its sequel CoderMindz. CoderMindz is based on the concept of Artificial Intelligence and is another hit. The game is first of its kind, and Samaira gives half of its credit to her younger brother Aadit Mehta, who assisted her in the development and is just six-years-old.

From basic to advance, the CoderBunnyz has thirteen levels, that makes the players grow their skills, with every step. The game has made a place among the Five Best Board Games of the World, that is a huge thing for anyone, at the age of ten. Before making up to the top five board games, it had already won the second-place prize of $2,500, from Think Tank Learning’s Pitchfest, in 2016.

After the launch of the game, Samaira started providing demo classes in libraries and schools, so that the kids could learn how to play. Soon, she received invitations for large tech events. Her game also grabbed the attention of the to tech giants, like Google and Microsoft, and they also organised the demo workshops for the game. Until now, she has done over 50 workshops in Silicon Valley, teaching over 2000 kids, including over 50 at Google. After the workshop at Google, she also received an offer of working with Google, as soon as she completes her college, by Stacy Sullivan, Google’s Chief Culture Officer.

Samaira also developed another board game, especially for the underrepresented girls, named as Girls U Code. Her achievement also brought her a letter of appreciation from the White House. Samaira has been featured in NBC, Sony, ZDF, Mercury News, sina.com and several media in three continents (North America, Asia, Europe) and over 11 countries. She spoke at the CMG Impact 2016 Women in Tech (2017), becoming the youngest speaker at CMG. She also gave a speech at the MyPowerTalk at Silicon Valley tech forum, in the same year, where she received a standing ovation from more than 400 women. The Cartoon Network also profiled her as the real-life “Powerpuff Girl”. She has received the Young Entrepreneur Award from the Silicon Valley, in 2017.

The big tech companies are all set to hire the young entrepreneur, but, it all it is up to her whether she will go with a multinational tech company or will run her own business. Until then, we can just watch her progress. Along with playing with codes and creating unusual board games, Samaira also loves to play guitar and archery. She is a supporter of girls education and wants to make people of every age fall in love with coding and programming.

Zhang Ruimin : The CEO & Chairman of World’s Leading Appliance Maker Company

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Business is not easy to run, especially, if there are no risk takers or competent leaders. When a company is under major crisis, it’s the leader’s job to step up and take necessary actions to overcome the difficulties. Companies that survive the worst storm come out strong with exceptional energy to surpass their competitors. Haier is one such company which has emerged so strong after it almost sunk that today it has become world’s fourth largest white appliances company. And all the credit goes to Zhang Ruimin who is now the chief executive officer of Haier Group.

Early Life

Born on 9th January 1949, in Laizhou, Shandong, China, Zhang Ruimin’s parents worked in a local garment factory. During his high school, the Cultural Revolution was shaping up rapidly. As a result, he joined the Red Guards along with other students. During the revolution, most of the schools remained closed so students could not attend classes. At such free times, Zhang visited Mao’s birthplace and also attended rallies.

The revolution also resulted in shutting down of most universities, therefore, halting education once again for Zhang and other students. He started working at the state-run construction company, in Qingdao, in 1968.

Early Career

Due to the unprecedented circumstances, Zhang could not complete his education properly. But, the fire to learn and educate himself, kept burning inside him. Therefore, he used to travel back and forth, for the management courses, on his bicycle, in between his shifts. Zhang was also a voracious reader, and read extensively on management.

zhang-ruimin
Image Source: thinkers50.com

After years of hard work, Zhang was promoted to workshop supervisor and, after a long 12 years of service, in 1980, he was promoted to deputy director of Qingdao. In the next couple of years, Zhang got promoted to higher positions. First, as the deputy manager of ‘Household Appliance Division’ of Qingdao municipal government, and next, as the general manager of Qingdao Refrigerator Plant. The second position came to him by surprise, as the previous manager left, and the company needed someone experienced for the position. The company was in deep financial trouble when Zhang took the General Manager’s position.

Resurrecting Refrigerator Plant

Once, on a business tour to Germany, Zhang noticed some crucial problems in terms of reputation and quality. The company was performing in both the cases. While on his way back, he decided to conduct a demonstration for his workers to make them understand the importance of quality of products.

This was the time when a customer came to Zhang with a faulty refrigerator, and they both went through the whole inventory of 400 refrigerators for replacement. During this process, Zhang found out that their products had a whopping 20% failure rate. He called for all his workers and assembled around 76 faulty refrigerators. Each worker was then handed a sledgehammer, and he ordered the workers to destroy each of those 76 refrigerators. The cost of each refrigerator at that time was so high, that it could cover their two years’ worth wages. Zhang himself took part in destroying the faulty products because he believed if they didn’t destroy them the products would destroy the company one day.

This act not only created a positive attitude in workers but, also gained the company lots of publicity, which helped them to reach big markets in Tianjin and Beijing. Zhang’s management style changed the complete scenario of the company. And, by 1986, the company saw major profits, marching up to 83 per cent.

Haier Group

Qingdao Refrigerator was renamed to Qingdao Haier Group, in 1991, and Zhang was still handling the post of the general manager of the company. He also enrolled himself at the University of Science and Technology, in China, for a master’s degree in business administration. After he graduated, in 1994, and the year before, he was appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of Haier Group.

As a CEO he decided to spread Haier abroad and reach international markets. The company started shipping products to the Middle East and Africa. The company, soon, started expanding to numerous countries, including the United States of America, with its total workforce ranging at 30,000 people. Financial Times listed Zhang among the ’50 most respected business leaders in the world.’

Personal Life

Zhang Ruimin’s wife was a party secretary at a textile factory in Qingdao. He has a son who studied business at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Bruce McLaren : The Kiwi Motorsport Ace From New Zealand

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The great racer who not only raced the cars, also designed and engineered the best racing cars for the world of the car race. At an early age, Mclaren founded the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd. He was not just a racer but his extraordinary, but short life left a legacy behind him. The Kiwi motorsport icon Bruce McLaren lived his life devoted entirely to his passion.

Early Life

Bruce McLaren was born on August 30 1937, as Bruce Leslie McLaren, Auckland, New Zealand. His father, Les McLaren, was an engineer and motor car man. His father along with his wife Ruth McLaren ran a service station and workshop. Bruce completed his primary education from Meadowbank Primary School, Auckland. Suffering from the Perthes disease, at the age of nine, his left leg remained shorter than his right leg. Due to the disease, he spent the next two years of his life, in the Wilson Home in Takapuna, on a Bradford Frame for treatment and had to leave the school. After two years, he came back to his family and started correspondence classes with a tutor. After completing his high school education, he graduated in engineering from the Seddon Technical Memorial College.

Bruce’s father, being a motor car man, loved cars and car racing. In fact, before the birth of Bruce, he used to participate in the motorcycle racing. Due to some injury, during one of his races, he had to leave motorcycle racing. But, he continued car racing, even after the accident. As Bruce had spent most of his childhood among motors and racing enthusiasts, he also grew a passion for automobiles and racing.

Career in Racing

Bruce was 14 when his father brought an old Austin Ulster to their workshop. His father wanted to repair the car so that he could take part in a car race. The car needed repair and took almost a year, to get back onto the roads. Bruce and his father even skipped meals to get the car done. After getting a driver’s license, at the age of 16, Bruce entered the first race of his life, a hill climb, about 25 miles outside Auckland.

mclaren
Image Source: grandprixhistory.org

For his first real race, he drove the Ford 10 special, and later, moved to the Austin-Healey and an F2 Cooper-Climax sports. In March 1958, he participated in the New Zealand International Grand Prix and was the first runner-up. In the competition, he won the “Driver to Europe” scholarship and became first New Zealander to do so. On 15th March, Bruce left for England, where he drove for John Cooper of Cooper Cars, starting in the very first year in England.

In late 1958, he participated in the German Grand Prix, a combined F1 and F2 race, where he earned his name among the people of England. The next year, in 1959, he joined the Cooper factory F1 team, alongside Jack Brabham, and at the age 22, Bruce won the United States Grand Prix, becoming the youngest ever GP winner of that time. Brabham was the Australian car race driver, who was also in the NZIGP Association’s selection committee. After this win, he won the Argentine Grand Prix (1960), Monaco Grand Prix (1962), and New Zealand GP (1964).

In 1963, Bruce founded the Bruce McLaren Motor Racing Ltd, along with an American sponsor Teddy Mayer, and continued racing, winning many Cooper races. In 1965, he announced his own GP team. Like his father, in the same year, he also invested in a service station. The station was established in his hometown Aukland and was named as Bruce McLaren Motors. He worked with Cooper for 7 long years, and left it, to develop his own Formula One race car, winning the team’s first Grand Prix in 1968. In the same year, he won the 24 hours of Le Mans in a 7-litre Ford Mark IIA, and in 1969, the 12 hours of Sebring in a Ford Mark IV.

Personal Life

Bruce married his wife, Patricia Broad, on 9 December 1961. The couple had a daughter named Amanda. On 2 June 1970, while testing his new M8D, at the Goodwood Circuit in England, his car crashed on the Lavant Straight, just before Woodcote corner and he died in the accident, at the age of 32.

The racing team founded by Bruce continued participating in Formula One races and won 8 Constructors’ Championships and 12 Drivers’ Championships. He has got the Taupo Motorsport Park, in New Zealand, renamed Bruce McLaren Motorsport Park in 2015. His name is inducted in the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame, International Motorsports Hall of Fame and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America.