Barry (Pak-Lee) Lam

Founder and Chairman of Quanta Computer, the leading laptop producer worldwide, Lam is also a major patron of the arts and a leading philanthropist in the area of culture and education. In 2011, Forbes named him as the 376th richest person in the world and 6th richest in Taiwan with a net worth of US$3 billion. In 2012, he was cited as the 296th richest person in the world and 5th richest in Taiwan with a net worth of US$4.2 billion.

Born in Shanghai and raised in Hong Kong, Lam studied Engineering in Taiwan, graduating from National Taiwan University with Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering. In 1973, he and some former classmates founded Kinpo, a manufacturer of handheld calculators. As President of the company, he built it into the largest contract manufacturer of calculators. In the late 1980s, Lam became convinced that notebook computers would be the next big product.

He left Kinpo and founded Quanta Computer in 1988, setting it up with the help of a colleague, C. C. Leung, with capital of less than US$900,000. Quanta had a turnover of US$23.7 billion in 2007. In 2001, a tough year for most computer companies, Lam led Quanta to world dominance as it became the largest notebook manufacturer worldwide and increased production by 50%. In 2002, Quanta moved production to mainland China, where it established a large manufacturing base with the aim of reducing costs.

After his success with Kinpo, he wanted Quanta to be more than a contract manufacturer. His vision was for Quanta to be a design manufacturer, a partner with its clients rather than just a supplier. As an SSDMM Provider — System Solution Design Manufacturing and Move — Quanta was very involved in engineering design for its clients. Lam stated that Quanta's ability in combining designing power and functionality into lightweight packages had been the key to its success.

Quanta offered combinations of features for each of its products which its clients could choose from. Once the design was agreed on, the next step was to get new, high-quality models into volume production quickly. These two steps — design capability and outstanding supply-chain management — ensured profitability for customers and long-term relationships for Quanta. He established the Quanta Research and Development Center at its headquarters in Taiwan, where it worked on many collaborative projects with major institutions such as MIT, National Taiwan University, and Academia Sinica on producing next-generation products.

Lam is recognized as a leading visionary in the high-tech field. A combination of engineering talent, innovative thinking, and entrepreneurial skills enabled him to build Quanta into one of the biggest high-tech companies worldwide. In 2006, Fortune Magazine recognized Quanta as one of the Fortune Global 500 Companies, and in 2007, Forbes placed Quanta 15th in its ranking of the world's most admired computer companies, the highest ranking of a Taiwanese company.

Quanta designed and manufactured for clients such as Apple Inc., Compaq, Dell, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, Alienware, Casper, Cisco, Fujitsu, Gericom, Lenovo, LG, Maxdata, MPC, Sharp Corporation, Siemens AG, Sony, Sun Microsystems, and Toshiba. It was the largest manufacturer of PC notebooks worldwide and had also diversified into servers, storage, and liquid-crystal display terminals. Quanta Computer's flexibility became a byword for Taiwanese competence in the high-tech world, and Lam is sometimes called the founder of the engineering/design/manufacturing model, which launched Taiwan's high-tech industry. His visionary view of the PC notebook world can be seen as the driving force behind the success and prolific growth of the notebook in the late 1990s.

He decided that Quanta would be the original design manufacturer (ODM) for the OLPC XO-1 by the One Laptop per Child project. Quanta took orders for one million laptops as of 2007-02-15. The OLPC project was also part of Quanta's Blue Ocean Strategy, entering new market segments which were uncontested in terms of competition. Lam considered that one path for the future was the availability of public computers in conjunction with OLPC, envisaging "public computers" available in organizations or schools and accessible to anyone with a PC.

In May 2008, celebrating its 20th anniversary, Quanta was named as Taiwan's second largest private manufacturing enterprise. Among his many philanthropic endeavors, in November 2002, Lam announced that he would fund a new College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at his alma mater, National Taiwan University. It opened in July 2004 and is known as the Barry Lam Hall, which houses the Barry Lam Art Gallery in its basement.

He has received many honors, including: an Honorary Doctorate from National Tsing Hua University in 2012; an Honorary Doctorate from National Taiwan University in 2007; an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Technology from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University in 2005; the Second Class Bright Star Medal from the Taiwan Government in 2006; the Wen Hsin Silver Award for outstanding promotion of social education from the Council of Cultural Affairs, Taiwan, in both 2006 and 2002; the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005; recognition as one of "25 Managers of the Year" by Business Week Magazine in 2002; and recognition as one of "The Stars of Asia" by Business Week Magazine in both 1999 and 2001.