Long before high-speed internet and artificial intelligence tools became part of students’ daily lives, learning often relied on whatever books were available. For a boy growing up in a small village in Karnataka, there was no internet connection, no smartphone, and no YouTube videos to answer questions about space. Just the encyclopedias my father brought home and my imagination that kept asking questions.That boy was Awais Ahmed. Today, satellites built by his company, Pixxel, are orbiting the Earth, helping to detect crop stress, methane leaks, industrial pollution and environmental changes that ordinary satellites often cannot capture. What started as a childhood curiosity has grown into one of India’s most prominent space technology startups.
When curiosity has to replace the Internet
Awais Ahmed grew up in Aldur village in Karnataka’s Chikkamagaluru district, nearly five hours’ drive from Bangalore. He was only introduced to the Internet in eighth grade, which meant he spent most of his childhood learning in traditional ways.His father recognized his fascination with space and regularly brought home encyclopedias about galaxies, planets and the universe. The books became Awas’s window into a world he couldn’t explore online.By the time he entered college, this curiosity had morphed into ambition.While studying Mathematics at BITS Pilani, Awais joined Team Anant, the institute’s student satellite program in partnership with ISRO. He also became the head of engineering at Hyperloop India, one of the finalist teams in the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition.Instead of taking another year to complete a double major, he chose a different path — building a company that he believed could transform satellite technology.
Problems that satellites cannot solve
In 2018, Awais and his BITS Pilani classmate Kshitij Khandelwal participated in the IBM Watson AI Challenge. Their project requires highly detailed satellite imagery to predict crop health.This data simply does not exist.Traditional satellites capture Earth in only a limited number of broad spectral bands, making it difficult to detect subtle changes invisible to the human eye. Problems such as early crop diseases, methane leaks, illegal mining or industrial pollutants often go unnoticed until they cause significant damage.Rather than accept this restriction, the two students decided to take matters into their own hands.Living on about Rs 10,000 a month, they founded Pixxel in February 2019, when they were still in their early 20s, using money borrowed from Awais’ father.
From student startup to global investor-backed company
What started as an ambitious university idea turned out to be one of India’s biggest private space success stories.Pixxel has raised approximately $95 million from investors including Google, Radical Ventures and Lightspeed, making it the most highly funded hyperspectral imaging company in the world.In 2025, the company successfully launched all six Firefly satellites into orbit. Unlike traditional satellites, the Pixxel constellation captures more than 250 spectral bands of the Earth with a resolution of 5 meters, producing approximately 50 times more spectral information than traditional Earth observation systems.Practical applications of the technology extend far beyond space exploration. It can help farmers detect crop stress weeks before obvious damage occurs, identify methane leaks in energy infrastructure, monitor illegal mining activities and track pollutants entering rivers and lakes.Pixxel’s rapid rise has also earned it international recognition. Time magazine named the company one of the 100 best inventions of 2023, and the World Economic Forum named it a technology pioneer in 2024. In the same year, Pixxel became the first Indian space startup to sign a contract with NASA and signed a five-year agreement with the US National Reconnaissance Office.For Awais, the journey has also brought personal recognition. He has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30, MIT Innovators Under 35 and Fortune India’s 40 Under 40, while his co-founder Kshitij Khandelwal has also been named to Forbes 30 Under 30.For students, however, the most compelling part of the story lay elsewhere. Awais Ahmed didn’t grow up surrounded by cutting-edge technology. He grew up surrounded by books, questions and curiosity.His journey reminds us that while technology can accelerate learning, curiosity is often where learning begins. Sometimes, an encyclopedia in a small village can inspire an idea that eventually reaches space.
