This Indian is the Brain Behind Amazon’s Voice Assistant Alexa
Alexa, Amazon’s AI-based voice assistant, has been conceptualised by an Indian Rohit Prasad. Here’s his story.
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Amazon is on its way to becoming one of the few global giants to cross the trillion dollar mark and when it does, Alexa would have played a big role in that. This voice assistant from Amazon, has ensured that both Google and Apple have been playing the catch up game.
The Jeff Bezos-owned retail and technology brand publicly announced Alexa in 2014, but little did we know about the man behind the voice assistant. Turns out, there’s a strong Indian connection behind Alexa – and that name is Rohit Prasad.
He is an engineer, hailing from Ranchi in Jharkhand, who’s been the pivot behind Alexa’s evolution over the past five years. It’s interesting to note that Alexa first made its Indian debut in 2017, beating Google’s Assistant in the country.
Prasad’s Journey
Prasad wasn’t alone in his journey with Alexa at Amazon. He was supported by Toni Reid. Both of them worked specifically on the consumer experience side at Amazon. Prior to his time at Amazon, Prasad worked at BBN Technologies for 14 years, which was the R&D arm of company called Raytheon.
Speaking via this interview, Prasad talked of his schooling at DAV High School, after which he pursued his engineering degree from Birla Institute of Technology (BITS), Mesra, which allowed him to stay close to home.
Post his graduation in electronics and communication engineering in 1997, Prasad decided to complete his Masters in electrical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology.
This is where Prasad found his interest in speech-recognition technology and during his 14 years stay at BNN Technologies, he gained further expertise in the domain. But it was only after he moved to Amazon in 2013, that Prasad managed to put his skills to use developing Alexa. Two years after joining the company, he was made the head scientist of Alexa.
Even in his interview, Prasad talked about his excitement when talking to a device from a distance became reality. “ We grew up in the Star Trek era, that was the inspiration for us,” he was quoted saying in the interview here.
Voice recognition has slowly become the trend that industry is keeping a eye on. The Quint has already demonstrated them at home and even hotels recently and the future is headed towards a voice-friendly ecosystem.
Voice-based search, shopping and social networking via devices like Amazon Echo or even the Google Home are gradually making their mark across the globe. For Alexa, we’ve got an Indian to thank for putting the country on the global map yet again.
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