Mr. Fregin co-founded the Quantum Valley Investments Fund in March 2013 with his close friend Mike Lazaridis. Messrs. Fregin and Lazaridis also co-founded Research In Motion Limited (RIM) in 1984, which created the BlackBerry wireless device that revolutionized the communications industry. Mr. Fregin served as the Vice President of Operations and as a Director of RIM until he retired in 2007. He was instrumental in evaluating various materials, fabrication technologies and design of the first circuit boards that were used in early versions of the company’s wireless technology that are now standard in the BlackBerry. Mr. Fregin studied electrical engineering at the University of Windsor. He was awarded the Queen’s II Diamond Jubilee Medal and is a Member of the Order of Canada. He also shares a Technical Emmy Award (1994) for Development of a Keycode Reader with Kodak and the National Film Board of Canada.
Currently, Mr. Fregin devotes a significant amount of his time and resources assisting various African Charitable Projects including the establishment and operation of a Vocational School in rural Uganda. He has also made contributions to a number of other philanthropic endeavours including donations to the Nanotechnology Initiative and the Quantum-Nano Centre at the University of Waterloo, as well as the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.