Babak Parviz

Babak is the founder and lead of Grand Challenge, the organization chartered with identifying, investing in, and operationalizing entirely new areas for Amazon. Examples of recent launched products/services from Grand Challenge include Amazon Care, Comprehend Medical, Echo Frames, and Amazon Explore. Prior to joining Amazon in 2014, Babak was with Google as a Distinguished Engineer and Director at Google [x] where he built Google Glass and founded the robotic surgery and the active contact lens programs.

Babak received his BA in Literature (University of Washington), BS in Electronics (Sharif University of Technology), MS in Physics and MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering (University of Michigan), and completed his postdoctoral fellowship in Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. He has received numerous recognitions including NSF Career Award, MIT Technology Review 35, University of Michigan Bicentennial Alumni Award, Time magazine’s best invention of the year, and IEEE CAS Industrial Pioneer Award.