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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.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou : The Founder of EasyJet

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The airline industry is one of the largest operating industry, in current time. The aeroplanes have truly connected the world and brought it closer. Each day, millions of people travel from one country to another or even within the country, through flights. Therefore, airline companies have also buckled up to provide top-notch services for their customers and make their travel experience unforgettable. One of the main features that airlines are trying to introduce is the cost of air tickets. The aim, is to make air travel affordable, for every individual and some of the companies are already on top of it, like EasyJet.

Founder of EasyJet

EasyJet was founded by Stelios Haji-Ioannou, when he was just 28, in the year 1995. Born on 14th February 1967, in Athens, Greece, his father was a self-made Greek-Cypriot shipping magnate. He is the second child among three children in his family. He has an older brother, Polys, and a younger sister, Clelia.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou
Image Source: The Telegraph

Stelios completed his secondary education in Athens, and then further went to London School of Economics to earn a BSc in Economics, in 1967. After completing his BSc, Stelios went on for a higher degree and enrolled himself in Cass Business School for MSc in Shipping, Trade & Finance.

His outstanding performance in the entrepreneur world was recognized by numerous prestigious institutions. He received four honorary doctorates from Liverpool John Moores University, Cass Business School, Newcastle Business School, and Cranfield University.

Early Career

Stelios started his work, in 1988, with his father’s successful shipping business called Troodos Shipping Co Ltd. He received a sum of £30 million from his father, when he was just 25, and used that money to start his own shipping company named Stelmar Shipping. He was also known as a self-made “serial entrepreneur”.
In 2001, Stelios listed Stelmar Shipping on New York Stock Exchange. And, in 2005, the company was sold to its rival OSG Group, for a whopping $1.3 billion.

The “Easy” Brand

Stelios started the Easy venture, in 1995, with its first business of low-cost airline named EasyJet. This venture was managed by Easy Group, and Stelios took the position of Chairman. The first EasyJet flight operated between Luton and Scotland.

With this first flight service, EasyJet set on to revolutionize entire European air travel. In the last two decades, the airline service has become a stellar success achiever and the most preferred air travel option for flyers.

In 2000, Stelios observed the need to fund the company for further expansion and, therefore, partially floated EasyJet onto the London Stock Exchange. Stelios and his family members are the highest stakeholders in EasyJet and own about 34% of shares, which are calculated worth £6.8bn as of 2015. EasyJet PLC has now become the largest airline company in Europe and owns more than 240 jets, carrying more than 85 million passengers each year.

Stelios joined hands with Lonrho PLC in Africa to start a new low-cost airline service called Fastjet. The airline company started operating on November 29, 2012, with its first aircraft Airbus A319.

Personal Life

Stelios stays in Monaco as his family left Athens when he was a teenager. He is also known for his charitable works and owns a charitable trust called Stelios Philanthropic Foundation. The foundation works towards education, entrepreneurial, and environmental initiatives.

Stelios received a knighthood from HM Queen Elizabeth II, for his services to entrepreneurship.

Garrett Camp : The Co-founder of the Online Discovery Platform StumbleUpon

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If you are skilled enough you are destined to achieve the goals you set even before you are a graduate. Garrett Camp, a Canadian entrepreneur, was still a student when he started his own business along with three of his college mates. The company gained popularity and within a year, bringing him into the spotlight and making him one of the Top Innovators under the age of 35.

Early Life

Garrett was born on October 4, 1978, in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to an economist father and an artist mother. Later, his parents started a business of architecture. Garrett completed his high schooling from a local government school. Later, he joined the University of Calgary and received a degree in electrical engineering, in 1996. During his junior year, at the college, he went through an internship, in speech recognition technology from Nortel Networks, Montreal. After graduating from the University of Calgary, he enrolled in the Masters in Software Engineering, in the same University and researched on the collaborative systems, evolutionary algorithms and information retrieval.

Garrett Camp
Image Source: designerfund.com

Founding StumbleUpon

Garrett was still in College when he came up with the idea of StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon was the first discovery engine, that was used to find web content for the users. Garrett founded StumbleUpon, with his friends at the University and established its office in San Francisco. The company received its first funding from the Silicon Valley’s Angels Investors. In 2007, eBay acquired StumbleUpon for $75 million. The company expanded its service to 25 million registered users in the next year. Camp re-acquired the company in 2015, as it went under debt, and helped the company recover its original status, once again. The company is still running its website successfully.

Other Ventures

In 2009, with Travis Kalanick, Garrett co-founded Uber, a transportation network company as UberCab. He made the initial funding for the project of $250K, himself. The idea behind Uber was to make the black taxis affordable for the people. Till mid-2012, Uber launched UberX and Uber SUV, making its way in the list of Forbes Top 10 Companies of 2012. Uber has become popular among the people as an affordable medium for travelling and is running its business in 500 cities across the globe.

In 2013, Garett started another venture named Expa that helps other startups financially, by raising funds from the major investors of Silicon Valley.

In 2007, Garrett was listed among the Top Innovators under the age of 35, at Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference, at MIT and Bloomberg Businessweek named him one of Tech’s Best Young Entrepreneurs in 2008. He spoke at the Wireless Influencers and South by Southwest, many a time and attended the DEMO Mobile 2013, as the judge and the panel member. In 2015, his total wealth was estimated to be US$5.3 billion by Forbes.