Alexa has become a household name in India and other parts of the world. The Amazon module that works on the concept of voice recognition got immensely popular within no time. But do you know who the brain behind the machine is? It is the brainchild of an Indian man, Rohit Prasad, who hails from Jharkhand capital Ranchi.
Currently working as Vice President and Head Scientist of Alexa Artificial Intelligence at Amazon, Prasad appeared on the 15th position on the Recode’s list of 100 people in technology, business and media who mattered in 2017.
Though Prasad is now settled abroad, he did his schooling and engineering from Ranchi. He studied in DAV Public School in Ranchi, and later went on to pursue engineering from Birla Institute of Technology (BIT) Mesra, a village near the Jharkhand capital.
After completing his engineering, Prasad decided to go abroad for further studies. He pursued MS in Electrical Engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and completed the same in 1999. Following this, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for an executive MBA programme.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Prasad joined Raytheon BBN Technologies in July 1999 as a staff scientist. In the same company, he went on to rise to the position of Deputy Manager and Senior Director of Speech, Language and Multimedia Business Unit.
He left the company in 2013 to join Amazon, where he reached new heights, not just as a professional, but also as an innovator. He worked with Amazon for three years as the Director of Machine Learning, Alexa, and was elevated in 2016 as the Vice President and Head Scientist of Alexa Artificial Intelligence.
Another achievement Prasad registered under his name is that he made it to the 15th position on the Recode’s list of 100 people in technology, business and media who mattered in 2017.
Earlier this year, Amazon has launched Alexa for Hospitality, developed specifically to act as a virtual hotel concierge. With Amazon Echo, guests can ask Alexa for information like hotel pool hours or the location of the fitness center and request room service or housekeeping.
The device can also be used to control room lights, temperature, the blinds and the TV. Aside from the hotel experience, guests can call on Alexa for Hospitality to check airport wait times, play games, or play white noise to help them fall asleep.
Likewise, Amazon is working on a feature that will allow Amazon customers to temporarily connect to their account and play music from their personal playlist, be it Amazon Music, Spotify or Pandora, or listen to their audiobooks. Marriott International will be the first to introduce Alexa into its hotel rooms, at select properties across its portfolio including Marriott Hotels, Westin, St. Regis, Aloft and the Autograph Collection, starting this summer.
