Ratan Tata, Michael Boustridge join X Prize Foundation Board

A month ago, Tata Motors announced they would be entering two vehicles in the Automotive X Prize. The company's involvement with the 100 mpge challenge has now deepened as Ratan Tata, the Chairman of Tata Sons (which owns Tata Motors, the maker of the Tata Nano, among other companies) has become a member of the X Prize Foundation's Board of Trustees. The President of BT Americas, Michael Boustridge, also joined the Board. The Board and the X Prize Foundation are in charge of more than just the Progressive Automotive X Prize, as the X Prize's "Revolution through Competition" model is also trying to find new ways to get back to the moon among other endeavors. Bios of both new Board members are available after the break.


Press Release:

Business Icon Ratan Tata and IT Services Leader Michael Boustridge Join X PRIZE Foundation Board of Trustees

Tata and Boustridge Bring International Business Savvy to Prestigious X PRIZE Board

SANTA MONICA, CA--(Marketwire - June 12, 2008) -

X PRIZE Foundation
The X PRIZE Foundation, an educational nonprofit that attempts to solve the grand challenges of our time by offering incentive prizes of $10M or more, today announced the appointment of Ratan Tata and Michael Boustridge to its Board of Trustees. Tata is the Chairman of Tata Sons, holding company of the Tata Group, India's largest conglomerate. Michael Boustridge is the President of BT Americas, a high-growth region of BT Global Services.

Tata and Boustridge will join a world-class Board of Trustees that includes industry leaders and luminaries such as inventor Dean Kamen, geneticist J. Craig Venter, PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, futurist and author Ray Kurzweil, first female private space explorer Anousheh Ansari, Google co-founder Larry Page, and publisher Arianna Huffington. The Board's guidance is essential to exploring new industries where the X PRIZE Foundation can have a significant impact by creating innovative, high-profile competitions that motivate individuals across all boundaries to solve grand challenges. The Foundation's motto is "Revolution through Competition."

"I have been an admirer of the goals set by the X PRIZE Foundation, which has inspired far-reaching breakthroughs in technology that ordinarily would not have been achieved. I look forward to participating in the process of breaking new frontiers in the future with the X PRIZE Foundation, which will have an impact on the way we live in future generations," said Tata.

"Fostering innovation and collaboration to allow people to thrive in our changing world is very much in keeping with BT's culture," said Boustridge. "I look forward to extending X PRIZE's ability to promote true innovation to challenge the many significant issues the world faces today."

"I am pleased and honored to welcome Ratan Tata and Michael Boustridge to the X PRIZE Foundation Board of Trustees," said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman and CEO, X PRIZE Foundation. "They are renowned global leaders whose guidance will help us keep our vision and mission global."

ABOUT RATAN TATA

Heading the Tata Group since 1991, Ratan Tata is the Chairman of Tata Sons, holding company of the Tata Group and major Group companies including Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Power and more. He is also Chairman of two of the largest private sector promoted philanthropic trusts in India. During his tenure, the Group has further expanded its global reach, with its revenues growing over eleven-fold to around $70B, after the most recent acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover. Mr. Tata joined the Tata Group in December 1962. After serving in various companies, he was appointed the Director-in-Charge of the National Radio & Electronics Company Limited (Nelco) in 1971. In 1981, he was named Chairman of Tata Industries, the Group's other holding company, which he was responsible for transforming into the Group's strategy think-tank and a promoter of new ventures in high-technology businesses. He is associated with many organizations in India and abroad in varying capacities, some of which are the government of India's Investment Commission, the Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry, South Africa's International Investment Council, several prestigious universities and several philanthropies. Mr. Tata received a Bachelor of Science degree in architecture from Cornell University in 1962, and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1975. The government of India honored Mr. Tata with one of its highest civilian awards, the Padma Vibhushan, this year.

ABOUT MICHAEL BOUSTRIDGE

Michael Boustridge is President, BT Americas, one of BT Global Services' four regions. BT Global Services helps multi-site organizations master the complexity of business communication by providing and managing networking solutions so customers can focus on their mission critical and core business operations. BT offers global multinational enterprises a broad range of professional services consulting and innovative IT network-centric solutions, including high performance networking, applications management, outsourcing and managed services, and business transformation. The organization employs some 30,000 people in 70 countries and delivers services in 170 countries. Michael joined BT Global Services in April 2007, assuming responsibility for all aspects of BT's operations and performance in the United States and Canada. He also manages BT Professional Services and BT Global Financial Services globally and has a coordinating role within BT's Asia Pacific region. Prior to this appointment, Boustridge was Vice President, Sales and Marketing, at EDS, where he was instrumental in achieving the company's highest total contract value for new business signings in five years. A native New Zealander, Boustridge joined EDS in 1996 from Hitachi Data Systems and worked at IBM earlier in his career.

ABOUT THE X PRIZE FOUNDATION

The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world's first private vehicle to space to win the $10M Ansari X PRIZE. The Foundation has since launched the $10M Archon X PRIZE for Genomics, the $30M Google Lunar X PRIZE, and the $10M Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. The Foundation is creating prizes in five areas: Exploration (Space and Underwater), Life Sciences, Energy & Environment, Education and Global Development. The Foundation is widely recognized as the leading model for fostering innovation through competition. For more information, please visit www.xprize.org

[Source: X Prize Foundation]

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