Congrats and Thanks to Iranian family of Ansaris: Anousheh Ansari and her brother-in-law, Amir Ansari. They announced a multimillion-dollar contribution to the X Prize Foundation on May 2004. Al-Hamdo-Lillah we have a winner now SpaceShip One.
The two are co-founders of the Texas-based venture capital firm Prodea, and they also co-founded Telecom Technologies Inc., a soft-switch systems company that was acquired by Sonus Networks in 2000.
Amir Ansari said that he and his sister-in-law had been debating whether to follow in California millionaire Dennis Tito’s footsteps and buy a trip to the international space station. But then X Prize founder Peter Diamandis “showed up and said, ‘Listen, you don’t have to go about it that way,’” he recalled. That’s when the Ansaris began to consider their sponsorship of the X Prize May 2004 interview.
American-Pakistanis should follow the foot steps of Ansaris. They will for sure touch the stars in the land of opportunity and the land of the free.
p.s. With all the bad news about Iran, I thought the story of American-Iranians will be worth reading.