Dr. Ashwin Ram is Senior Manager of AI Science for Alexa, the intelligent agent that powers Amazon Echo and other devices. He leads R & D initiatives to create advanced technologies for conversational agents, including the university-face Alexa Prize competition.

Dr. He is a distinguished artificial intelligence (AI) researcher and entrepreneur. He managed the Interactive Intelligence research area at  PARC , leading a team to invent new behavior change technologies to help people adopt healthier lifestyles. He was a professor in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech and director of the Cognitive Computing Lab. He has co-initiated multiple startups, including OpenStudy (acquired by Brainly), an online social learning network, and Enkia (acquired by Sentiment 360), which developed AI software for social media applications.

He received his PhD from Yale University in 1989, his MS from University of Illinois in 1984, and his BTech from  IIT  Delhi in 1982. He has published 2 books and over 100 scientific articles in international forums.

He is a closet anthropologist and loves travel, people and culture.