Profile of Mr. Amit Prasad
Founder MD & CEO, SatNav TechnologiesAt 37, Amit has a dynamic career running his entrepreneurial venture SatNav Technologies which is India’s first GPS navigation firm and a pioneer in India. Bringing this technology to India was a passion of Amit’s when he stumbled on the idea of implementing GPS navigation while travelling in the US. The business idea was approved as an Entrepreneur incubation program within his company and was later spun off as a separate entity in the year 2004.
Amit completed his Engineering from Osmania University in 1995 after which he pursued Post Graduate Course in Marketing Management (Specialization in International Marketing), from Indira Gandhi National Open University. Amit has also done his Bachelor of Arts (Specialization in Public Administration and History), from Indira Gandhi National Open University, completing it in 1996 and a Post Graduate Diploma in Computer Applications..
Amit and his team identified early on that services business would suffer from low margins in the future years and identified the Products space to focus on. Within products, they picked up GPS as a technology that had a potential to create the next big entity in this space. Thus started the journey of SatNav Technologies under his leadership.
Since GPS was fairly a new concept to the people in India, Amit and his team at SatNav had to work their way to pioneering this industry in the Indian market in 2005. With the initial investments from friends and family, SatNav developed its major business vertical called SatGuide under Amit’s guidance. Later they were assisted with capital inputs from venture tycoons like BCCL and Sequoia Capital that came in 2007 and 2008 respectively. Over the years, SatGuide has introduced various navigation products like PND, PDA, mobile software and laptop/desktop software, BTR and logge all of which are doing very well in the market.
Today, Amit and his team are working on navigation products and services that are in high technology areas like voice based navigation service with various telecom service providers and also tracking of various movable assets. Amit believes that the Indian market holds great potential for companies like his but at the same time it is very challenging as the concept is yet to capture the buyer’s mind. To make this possible, SatNav has recently invested 10 crores into the retail segment and has tied-up with major retail players across India. Amit’s vision is to build an organization that has entrepreneurship and performance recognition as core values, which he aims to, inculcate across all levels in the company.
Amit spends part of his time working on another venture which is the Sunshine Preschools business set up to focus on preschool education and bring international standards to the pre-school segment in India. He also likes reading biographies of leading business leaders, watching TV, playing golf, analyzing the stock markets in India / USA and contributing to social causes.
Amit loves to spend time with his family, which comprises of his wife Saloni, daughter Ishita, son Ishaan and his mother, Rani.
For more information on his current initiatives visit www.satnavtechnologies.com