Fostering Innovation. Building Community.
Waterloo named the World's Top Intelligent Community 2007
The Intelligent Communities Forum (ICF) has recognized Waterloo as being the world's Top Intelligent Community 2007, an honour that acknowledges the community that best exemplifies the development of a prosperous economy based on broadband and information technology.
One of the Educational Initiatives includes Research in Motion (RIM) and the Institute for Quantum Computing.
Mike Lazaridis and his co-CEO Jim Balsillie are co-founders of Research in Motion. Balsillie is also the Honourary Chairperson of Waterloo's 2006 Intelligent Community submission.
Based in Waterloo, RIM is the pioneer of the popular BlackBerry handheld wireless communications device. There are over 3.95M users of the Blackberry worldwide, with the market continuing to grow steadily. RIM now operates offices in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
Lazaridis is also the driving force behind the University of Waterloo's Institute for Quantum Computing. The U of W, backed by private donations and government funding, aims to make Waterloo the leading centre in the world for quantum and nanotech research.