Awais Ahmed

Awais Ahmed is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pixxel, an Indian space-technology startup that builds and operates a constellation of nanosatellites to collect, monitor and analyze data through satellite imagery. Awais and Kshitij Khandelwal, who were batchmates at BITS Pilani, founded Pixxel with a vision to build a global space-tech company out of India that would contribute meaningfully towards space exploration. Pixxel is the only startup from Asia to be selected for the first batch of 10 startups in Techstars Starburst Space Accelerator in Los Angeles. Awais, who was also one of the earliest founding members at Hyperloop India, led the levitation and braking subsystems team for the competition while helping with the manufacturing, outreach, and fundraising activities. He designed, simulated and tested parts of the control subsystem for a nanosatellite that will launch into space as part of ‘Team Anant’ - BITS Pilani's official student nanosatellite team. Awais has also worked as a Research Intern at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited in the year 2017 for three months wherein he designed and simulations of combat helicopters in the Rotary Wing Research & Design Centre (RWR&DC). RWR&DC with its modern facilities and state-of-the-art technologies spearheads HAL’s thrust towards excellence in the field of helicopter design. He also delivered a talk on the science and engineering of building high-performance space cameras at the Standford’s Centre for Image Engineering.