Farhad Khan, aka Freddy, is the First African in Space Team’s connection in Houston, where he has spent much time developing and managing a working relationship with Nasa. He is also devising ways in which Nasa, with its long history in space travel, can assist in the educational outreach initiative in South Africa by sharing educational and media content used in the States.
During the flight, Freddy will be tasked with flight activities co-ordination from Houston. This includes the input and possible upload of the daily-activities schedule, as well as management of video and data links from space. The management of a point of contact for media queries in Houston also forms part of Freddy’s scope.
Freddy was born and grew up in the beautiful town of Richmond in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Midlands. He completed school in Durban and studied courses in Electronics and thereafter Marketing.
Freddy specialises in telecommunications, and, more particularly, marketing strategy in this field. He has been a product manager at South Africa’s telephone company, Telkom, where he developed and managed new products for the consumer marketplace. Some of these include the new range of telephones, caller-identity services and the cordless range of phones.
He has also worked for cellphone manufacturer Nokia, where he was involved in several cellular-licence bids for international cellular operators, for example, Wind in Italy, Telenor in Norway, and the 3rd Cellular licence in South Africa.
He has been a consultant for Accenture, and was key in the development of the marketing and product strategy for the new South African Cellular operator, Cell C. |
