idea factory at night

Amir Ansari

Co-founder and Executive Director
xFoundry@UMD

Amir Ansari is a serial entrepreneur and inventor with over 70 US and foreign patents in multimedia distribution, data privacy, edge computing, and Voice Over IP. He has co-founded companies in telecommunications, artificial intelligence, edge computing, personalized healthcare, and multimedia services. He has shaped these industries by fostering collaboration between regulatory entities, public-private partnerships, universities, and non-profit organizations in applying technologies to complex business, environmental, and social problems.

Amir has served on the XPRIZE Foundation's Board of Directors since 2004 and is a member of its Vision Circle. He was a title sponsor for the first XPRIZE, the Ansari XPRIZE, with his family, a $10 million cash award for the first non-governmental organization to launch a reusable crewed spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.