Mike Lazaridis, above, the founder, president and co-chief executive officer of Research In Motion Ltd., and his wife Ophelia have donated an additional $17.2-million to the University of Waterloo to fund quantum computing and nanotechnology research, the university said.
The latest gift follows a $33.3-million donation made last year by the couple, the largest private donation ever received by the Ontario university, and brings the Lazaridises' total giving to the Quantum Computing and Nanotechnology Engineering Program to $50-million.
"We believe accelerated research and education in quantum computing and nanotechnology engineering will change the technological landscape and benefit mankind for generations to come," Mr. Lazaridis said in a news release from the university. One quarter of the latest donation will go towards an endowment to attract foreign graduate students involved in quantum studies. The remainder will help fund a facility for the Institute for Quantum Computing and Nanotechnology Engineering Program, which will be built at the centre of the university's campus.
Quantum computing remains little more than a concept today, but scientists say it could increase the power of computers exponentially by moving from a world where calculations are performed based on ones and zeros to a realm where they are carried out based on the behaviour of sub-atomic particles. Nanotechnology involves building new kinds of materials by manipulating matter at the atomic and molecular level.
A year ago, Mr. Lazaridis, who also serves as the university's chancellor, completed a $100-million donation to the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in downtown Waterloo. The independent research institute, which launched in the fall of 2000, also received more than $77-million from the federal and Ontario governments, and $10-million from each of Jim Balsillie, RIM's chairman and co-CEO, and Doug Fregin, the company's vice-president of operations.
Mr. Lazaridis, the father of the BlackBerry communications device, was awarded The Globe and Mail's Nation Builder of the Year award in 2002, in large part for his philanthropic ventures. He is easily one of Canada's wealthiest individuals. According to a regulatory filing by RIM last year, he owns nearly 7 per cent of the company that he founded in 1984 to sell electronic signs and other technology. RIM has a market valuation of more than $15-billion, making Mr. Lazaridis one of Canada's few billionaires.
RIM (TSX) rose $1.21 cents to $82.23.
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