ITU Telecom World 2009 In Review VIP PROGRAMME: Thought Leadership / Meet a Leader. “Smartphones and the Connected Society”. Research in Motion Mike Lazaridis, President and co-CEO of Research In Motion The “Meet a leader” session of the VIP programme featured Mike Lazaridis, President and co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM), the maker of BlackBerry smartphones. Opening remarks were made by Helen McDonald, Assistant Deputy Minister at Canada’s Department of Industry, Spectrum, Information Technologies and Telecommunications. The session was moderated by Patri-cia Szarvas of the television broadcaster CNBC, United Kingdom. Mr Lazaridis highlighted a number of issues at the core of the wireless industry’s success. From the importance of security as a fundamental foundation for the wireless industry, to the role of technology in e-health, he drew on his many years of experience in the industry. Mr Lazaridis is known in the global wireless community as a visionary and ex-ceptionally talented engineer. A Canadian whose hometown is Windsor, Ontario, he founded RIM while a student at university. As President and co-CEO, he is responsible for research and development, product development, and manu-facturing. He is also a passionate advocate of education and scientific research, and personally invested USD 150 million in the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, which opened in 2001 in Waterloo, Ontario. He has also helped gener-ate more than USD 100 million in additional private and public-sector funding for the institute, a centre of scientific excellence that is now associated with over 30 Canadian universities and a growing number of others worldwide. *Text extracted from ITU News, November 2009. *All photos are by P. Christin/ITU, D. Keller/ITU, V. Martin/ITU, and F. Rouzioux/ITU unless indicated otherwise 37 VIP Programme Summary Report