Dr Farhad Fassihi, an ex-academic, is the managing director of the GEP Tec Ltd. and the architect of the “Schools Transport Automatic Register system” (STAR). His company; a young ICT enterprise was a finalist in the “Discovering Start ups 2010”, an innovation competition, organised by the EEDA.

Their STAR system which was developed after years of research is designed to streamline the educational transport service. STAR has been utilised by 10 UK local authorities and has won two major awards in 2010:
- The award for “Innovation and Excellence” from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport for the implementation of STAR in 6 North Welsh authorities.
- 1st Runner up award in the International GNSS innovation competition “Galileo Masters”, organised by the European Commission.

Farhad is currently working closely with a number of UK local authorities to develop new strategies to cope with austerity measures without affecting the quality of service.