Jay Steele

Former Senior Director, Blackberry - Halifax Office
Jay Steele

BMath '95

I graduated from the University of Waterloo Mathematics co-op program in 1995. During my co-op studies, I had the opportunity to work for companies like Michelin, Side Effects Software, Pulse Microsystems and even the University of Waterloo Computer Graphics Lab. During my formative years at the University of Waterloo I had the privilege of being one of few undergraduate members of the Computer Graphics Lab under the tutelage of professor Richard Bartels.

After graduating, in 1996 I founded a company called Plazmic Inc. Plazmic grew to 40 people worldwide with offices in Toronto and Tokyo, selling 2D graphics technologies in Japan on the i-mode wireless telephony service. I was the president and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Plazmic until it was sold to Research in Motion (RIM) in 2001.

Later, I left RIM to co-found Toronto-based Viigo in 2004, a company specializing in the development of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and information services technologies for the mobile/wireless industry. I was Viigo's CTO. In March of 2010 Viigo was acquired by Research in Motion (now BlackBerry), where I stayed on as a senior director in the Halifax office until March of 2013.

In addition to all of that work stuff, I'm an amateur photographer and film-maker, National Hockey League (NHL) hockey fan (go Leafs), and Formula One racing fan.

Most important of all, I'm a husband and father of two teenage girls.