Barry Lam

Barry Lam (Chinese: 林百里; pinyin: Lín Bǎilǐ; Cantonese Yale: Lam4 Baak3 Lei5; born 24 April 1949) is a Taiwanese billionaire businessman, and the founder and chairman of Quanta Computer.[1][2] He is also a patron of the arts and a philanthropist in the area of culture and education.[3]

Barry Lam
Born (1949-04-24) 24 April 1949
Shanghai, China
NationalityTaiwanese
EducationNational Taiwan University
OccupationBusinessman
Known forChairman, Quanta Computer
SpouseMarried
Children2

On 25 May 2021, Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimated his net worth at $5.98 Billion.[4]

Barry Lam was born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong.[5] His father was an accountant for the Hong Kong Club.[6] He studied engineering in Taiwan, graduating from National Taiwan University with bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering.[7]

In 1973, he and some former classmates founded Kinpo Electronics,[8] a manufacturer of handheld calculators. As president of the company he built it into the largest contract manufacturer of calculators.[8] In the late 1980s, he became convinced that notebook computers would be the next big product.[9] He left Kinpo and founded Quanta Computer in 1988.[7] He set up Quanta Computer with the help of a colleague, C. C. Leung, with capital of less than US$900,000. It had a turnover of NT$777 billion in 2007, US$23.7 billion.[10][11]

In 2006, Fortune Magazine included Quanta in the Fortune Global 500 Companies,[12] and in 2007, Forbes placed Quanta 15th in its ranking of the world's most admired computer companies, the highest of a Taiwanese company.[13] Quanta designs and manufactures for clients such as Apple Inc., Compaq, Dell, Gateway, BlackBerry Ltd., Hewlett-Packard,[14] Alienware, Cisco Systems, Fujitsu, Gericom, Lenovo, LG, Maxdata, MPC, Sharp Corporation, Siemens, Sony, Sun Microsystems, and Toshiba. It is the largest manufacturer of PC notebooks worldwide[15] and has diversified into servers, storage, and liquid-crystal display terminals.[16]

Quanta

Lam established the Quanta Research and Development Center at its headquarters in Taiwan. The center works on many collaborative projects with major institutions such as MIT, National Taiwan University and Academia Sinica on producing next generation products.[17]

MIT Project T-Party

In 2005, Lam and Quanta joined forces with MIT on Project T-Party,[18] a five-year initiative to create the next generation of platforms for computing and communication.[19] The project aims to create new interfaces and explore new ways of managing and accessing information.[20]

One Laptop per Child

Lam decided that Quanta would be the original design manufacturer (ODM) for the OLPC XO-1 by the One Laptop per Child project.[21] Quanta took orders for one million laptops as of 2007-02-15.[22] The OLPC project was also part of Quanta's Blue Ocean Strategy,[23] entering new market segments which are uncontested in terms of competition.

Arts patronage and philanthropy

Lam is one of the foremost patron of the arts in Taiwan.[3] He has a personal collection of more than 1,000 works of art and in particular, he collects Chinese paintings and calligraphy.[9] One of his favourite painters is Zhang Daqian, and he has more than 250 of his works.[24] He is a sponsor of the Zhang Daqian Museum, which is housed in the artist's former home. He has incorporated a Museum of Art and Technology in the headquarters of Quanta in Taiwan, and he displays his personal art collection there.

He is chairman of the Advisory Committee of the National Palace Museum, Taipei, one of the leading museums worldwide.[25] It has the largest collection of Chinese artefacts in the world.

He is chairman of the Contemporary Art Foundation which manages the MoCA Taipei.[26]

He is director of the Cloud Gate Dance Theater group,[3] a Taiwanese modern dance group, which has performed in the Guggenheim Museum[27] in New York, and toured Europe extensively.[28][29]

He is founder and chairman of the Quanta Cultural and Educational foundation, which promotes culture, art and education in Taiwan.[1] It promotes educational exhibitions and programs for schools free of charge. It has held more than 20 exhibitions in 291 schools, with more than 1.3 million young people participating in its educational activities.[30] The foundation has received the Wen Hsin Golden Award from the Council for Cultural Affairs, Taiwan, for its outstanding promotion of social education many times.[31]

In November 2002, Barry Lam announced that he would fund a new College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at his alma mater National Taiwan University.[32] It opened in July 2004, and is known as the Barry Lam Hall.[32] It houses the Barry Lam Art Gallery in its basement.[33]

He is chairman of the Dwen An Social Welfare Foundation, a charitable organisation funded by leading business people in Taiwan.[34]

He is a board director of the China Exploration and Research Society (CERS),[35] a Hong Kong-based group dedicated to understanding the natural wonders of China.

Honors
  • 2019 First Class Science and Technology Profession Medal, Ministry of Science and Technology[36]
  • 2012 Honorary Doctorate, National Tsing Hua University[37]
  • 2007 Honorary Doctorate, National Taiwan University[38]
  • 2005 Honorary Degree: Doctor of Technology, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University[39]
  • 2006 'Second Class Bright Star Medal' Taiwan Government[31]
  • 2006 and 2002 Wen Hsin Silver Award for outstanding promotion of social education, Council of Cultural Affairs, Taiwan[31]
  • 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year, Ernst and Young[40]
  • 2002 One of '25 Managers of the Year', Business Week Magazine[41]
  • 2001 and 1999 One of 'The Stars of Asia', Business Week Magazine[42][43]

References
  1. Quanta Computer. Quantatw.com.
  2. "New products bolster technology stocks - Marketplace by Bloomberg - International Herald Tribune". www.iht.com. Archived from the original on 24 March 2007.
  3. http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website/5-gp/yearbook/who_1b_l2o.html%5B%5D
  4. "Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Barry Lam". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  5. "#21 Barry Lam". Forbes.
  6. Landler, Mark (25 March 2002). "Taiwan Maker of Notebook PC's Thrives Quietly". The New York Times.
  7. "Taiwan Review". Archived from the original on 16 July 2011. Retrieved 11 February 2009.
  8. Barry Lam, Founder, Quanta Computer, Taiwan (int'l edition). Bloomberg BusinessWeek. (14 June 1999).
  9. "Annual reporting archive". Investor Relations. Archived from the original on 26 August 2014.
  10. CommonWealth Magazine. English.cw.com.tw.
  11. "Global 500 2008: Global 500 301–400". CNN.
  12. Quanta Computer rank 454th in Fortune Global 500 2006 https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/global500/2006/snapshots/4214.html
  13. Computers industry of the world's most admired companies 2007 https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/globalmostadmired/2007/industries/industry_5.html
  14. Lander, Mark (25 March 2002). "Taiwan Maker of Notebook PC's Thrives Quietly". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 6 November 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2011.
  15. "History of Quanta Computer Inc. – FundingUniverse". www.fundinguniverse.com.
  16. Quanta Computer Archived 19 May 2017 at the Wayback Machine. Quantatw.com.
  17. Quanta Computer. Quantatw.com.
  18. (0M project sets sights on future of computing | MIT News Office. Web.mit.edu (13 April 2005).
  19. "Rethinking computers at MIT". Archived from the original on 24 April 2005. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  20. Precision Agriculture: Sustainable Farming in the Age of Robotics | MIT CSAIL Archived 21 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine. Csail.mit.edu.
  21. "Taiwan Review". Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  22. Nystedt, Dan. (15 February 2007) One million OLPC laptop orders confirmed Archived 17 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine. Network World.
  23. Taiwan's computer firms look at ways to diversify. Taipei Times (16 July 2014).
  24. Landler, Mark (25 March 2002). "Taiwan Maker of Notebook PC's Thrives Quietly". The New York Times.
  25. 國立故宮全球資訊網-訊息頁. Npm.gov.tw.
  26. "Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei (Taipei City)". 10 August 2007. Archived from the original on 10 August 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  27. "Press Releases". Guggenheim.org. Archived from the original on 2 August 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  28. "Page Not Found :: Cal Performances" (PDF). www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  29. Blaze destroys Cloud Gate Dance Theater studio in Taipei County. China Post.
  30. "Quanta Cultural and Educational Foundation" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 25 April 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2011.
  31. Quanta Computer. Quantatw.com.
  32. "Major Events". Archived from the original on 11 December 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  33. http://台大.tw/english/highlights/2008/he080121_4.html
  34. Foundation says it is not Ma's toy. Taipei Times (16 July 2014).
  35. "News". Archived from the original on 6 October 2008. Retrieved 17 February 2009.
  36. Lin, Chia-nan (19 December 2019). "Quanta founder's AI work receives a ministry award". Retrieved 19 December 2019.
  37. Quanta's Barry Lam receives honorary doctorate – Taiwan News Online. Taiwannews.com.tw (22 February 2012).
  38. (PDF). 15 June 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110615001107/http://homepage.ntu.edu.tw/~secretor/ntunewsletter/003fulltext.pdf. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 June 2011. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  39. "The Hong Kong Polytechnic University - PolyU". www.polyu.edu.hk. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  40. "Entrepreneur Of The Year program". Archived from the original on 2 February 2009. Retrieved 16 February 2009.
  41. The Top 25 Managers of the Year. Businessweek (13 January 2002).
  42. The Stars of Asia. Businessweek (1 July 2001).
  43. The Stars of Asia (int'l edition) Archived 4 March 2015 at the Wayback Machine. Bloomberg BusinessWeek. (14 June 1999).
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