In a world increasingly reliant on digital transformation, one emerging tool promises to bridge the widening knowledge gap in technical industries – Airwave. At its heart is founder and CEO Pankaj Prasad, whose background spans roles at Zoom and Salesforce, but whose passion lies in the garage, wrench in hand, fixing cars and motorcycles. That duality between high-tech environments and hands-on mechanical work seeded the idea for Airwave – an AI-driven platform designed specifically for technicians in the field.
“When I walk into my garage, I have nothing to help me be better at fixing things,” Prasad explains. “At work I have all these amazing digital tools. But as a mechanic, I’m looking through PDFs, forums, or hoping someone on YouTube has done the same thing.”
For industries like hydropower – facing both a retiring workforce and a scarcity of young recruits – Airwave could become a vital bridge between generations of knowledge and practice.
Making technology speak the technician’s language
Airwave’s foundation lies in one crucial technological breakthrough: language understanding. “AI is a broad term,” Prasad explains. “But the way I describe it to our customers is: the breakthrough is that computers can now understand our language. For the past 40 years, in order to talk to a computer, you had to write code. Then for the last 10, you didn’t need code, but you still had to navigate complex forms, click here, click there. Now? You just talk.”
This concept is at the core of Airwave. The platform resembles a messaging app – intentionally modelled after familiar tools like iMessage or Microsoft Teams. It’s designed to be instantly intuitive, particularly for technicians who don’t want to learn a new system from scratch.
“We didn’t want them to have to learn how to use a new app,” says Prasad. “What makes Airwave different is it has this giant purple button in Jarvis.”
Jarvis, Airwave’s AI assistant, responds to spoken commands. A technician facing an unfamiliar situation – say, an E1 error on a Daikin VRV3 outdoor condenser – can simply hit the button and ask: “What is an E1 error code on a Daikin VRV3 outdoor condenser unit?” Jarvis will then scan all relevant documentation, videos, manuals, and internal data, and respond with a quick, actionable answer.
While that kind of functionality is useful, Airwave goes a step further – allowing users to capture what Prasad calls “tribal knowledge.”
“A lot of how things work isn’t in the manual,” he explains. “It’s tribal knowledge – things people learn over time. Like: wait two minutes before you power back on or you’ll blow the board. That’s not in the book.”
Technicians can share this information within Airwave’s discussion channels, creating a living knowledge base that grows over time. “It compounds,” Prasad says. “You can add that to Jarvis. So not only does it pull from documentation, but it evolves as your team goes out and works on things.”
This collaborative element is key, especially in industries like hydropower, where decades of hard-earned experience are at risk of disappearing.
Bridging generations
“In these industries, there are folks who’ve been doing it for 30 years. They know everything. And then there are folks coming in who are completely new,” Prasad comments. “You can’t get this training at university or in trade schools. It just doesn’t exist.”
One customer, faced with this very challenge, considered hiring a video crew to follow senior technicians for two weeks to document their expertise. The idea was quickly dropped when the technicians, understandably, didn’t want to be on camera.
“Instead, they used Airwave,” Prasad says. “Technicians started asking questions, and those with experience just hit the button and answered. It’s simple.”
Airwave is also designed to eliminate one of the biggest barriers to learning: fear. “People are afraid of asking dumb questions. They don’t want to look incompetent in front of their supervisor,” says Prasad. “But Jarvis doesn’t judge. You ask the question, and you get the answer.”
The platform has proven especially useful for companies looking to retain access to senior expertise even after technicians leave the workforce. Prasad shares one origin story that’s become folklore within Airwave.
“There was a guy named Don. He was retiring after 40 years. Knew everything. But he didn’t want to come to work anymore. So they put Airwave on his phone. When he was out fishing or whatever he was doing in retirement, he could go in and just answer questions. He loved it.”
Don’s knowledge stayed within the company, helping train and support younger staff – without him ever setting foot on-site again.
From reluctance to enthusiasm
There’s often skepticism when introducing new tech – especially to seasoned workers. But Prasad says the pattern is always the same.
“Initially, there’s reluctance. They say, ‘I don’t need this. I’ve been doing this for 40 years.’ Then they try it, and you see them smile. Because they realise, ‘For 40 years I had to walk back to the truck when I didn’t know something. Sometimes that’s an hour. Now, I hit a button.’”
The initial curiosity often turns into enthusiasm. “For the first week, they try to break it. They ask hundreds of questions,” he laughs. “And then they start engaging with other people. They’re not just answering the same thing over and over. With Airwave, you answer it once, and you never have to answer it again.”
Improving safety, accuracy, and efficiency
The benefits extend well beyond convenience. “People are safer,” Prasad says. “They’re less likely to skip steps or guess wrong, because they have the right information, right there.”
The platform also reduces time spent walking back and forth or waiting for clarification. “In one case, a worker didn’t remember the measurements the foreman gave them. They had to walk all the way back. Now, they can just ask.”
Prasad also emphasises that Airwave is not replacing human intelligence – it’s amplifying it. “Artificial intelligence, in our space, doesn’t replace jobs. It augments them. It’s a force multiplier. You can take a junior technician and make them a great technician, because they have access to the experience of everyone who came before.”
Offline access, global language support and intellectual property
For field operations in remote or underground hydropower sites, connectivity can be an issue. Airwave is designed with that in mind.
“We built it knowing technicians are in pits, tunnels, basements – areas where there’s no signal,” says Prasad. “So it works offline. You can prepare a question or record a video while offline, and it’ll sync later.”
It also supports multilingual communication. “You can be in South Africa speaking Afrikaans, and it’ll pull info from an English manual and reply in your language. It’s language-fluent.”
Accuracy and security are core principles of the system. Airwave avoids the pitfalls of publicly trained AI models by keeping all data internal and private to each workspace.
“All the information is secured within each customer’s workspace,” says Prasad. “Technician know-how is intellectual property. We don’t share it between companies. We don’t put it on the internet. We don’t use that data to train our models for their competitors.”
Organisations can control access and even share knowledge across subsidiaries, if they choose, but the foundation is privacy and precision.
What’s next?
Airwave’s next innovation aims to eliminate even the need to look at a screen. The company is working on smart safety glasses with built-in microphones, speakers, and cameras.
“Every technician has to wear safety glasses,” Prasad says. “So why not make them smart?”
With a simple voice command – “Hey Jarvis, what’s the efficiency rating on this machine?” – the technician can receive an audio response without breaking focus or taking out a phone. The system can also record and send video, facilitating real-time support or future reference.
“These are safety-first environments,” Prasad adds. “If you can help someone keep their hands free and eyes up, that’s a win.”
Reimagining human-AI collaboration
At its core, Airwave is not about replacing the human element, but enhancing it.
“I’m a mechanic. I love working on machines,” Prasad says. “AI is really about enabling intelligence. It makes it easy for experts to give, and easy for others to get.”
The future, as Prasad sees it, is still very much hands-on. “You’re still turning the wrench. But now you’re not alone. You’ve got the knowledge of your whole company with you.”
In hydropower and beyond, tools like Airwave offer a way to preserve critical institutional knowledge, support the incoming workforce, and ensure continuity in mission-critical operations. As the industry faces increasing demands with fewer experienced hands, platforms like this could prove indispensable – not as a replacement for expertise, but as its amplifier.
