Amir Ansari ( fa, امیر انصاری) is an American Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of
Prodea Systems.
Along with his sister-in-law
Anousheh Ansari
Anousheh Ansari ( fa, انوشه انصاری ; née Raissyan; born September 12, 1966) is an Iranian American engineer and co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems. Her previous business accomplishments include serving as co-founder and CEO o ...
, he made a multimillion-dollar contribution to the
Ansari X Prize foundation on May 5, 2004, the 43rd anniversary of
Alan Shepard
Alan Bartlett Shepard Jr. (November 18, 1923 – July 21, 1998) was an American astronaut, United States naval aviator, naval aviator, test pilot, and businessman. In 1961, he became the second person and the first American to travel int ...
's sub-orbital spaceflight. The X Prize was officially renamed the ''Ansari X Prize'' in honor of their donation.
Born in 1970 in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the Capital city, capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is th ...
,
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkm ...
, Ansari immigrated to the United States before the
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dyna ...
. He received his
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years.
The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...
degree in electrical engineering and computer science at
George Mason University
George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was orig ...
. Amir, along with his brother Hamid and Anousheh, founded
Telecom Technologies, Inc. (TTI) in 1993, and served as the company's
CTO. TTI was acquired by
Sonus Networks, Inc. in January 2001.
Prodea has announced the formation of a partnership with
Space Adventures
Space Adventures, Inc. is an American space tourism company founded in 1998 by Eric C. Anderson. Its offerings include zero-gravity atmospheric flights, orbital spaceflights (with the option to participate in a spacewalk), and other spacefli ...
, Ltd. and the
(FSA) to create a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles for global commercial use.
References
21st-century American businesspeople
Iranian emigrants to the United States
People from Tehran
Living people
George Mason University alumni
American electrical engineers
Ansari X Prize
Chief technology officers
21st-century American inventors
Year of birth missing (living people)
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