Sustainability in Space Pitch Competition: Advancing Innovation in Queensland
Reflections from Bridget Anderson, Aerospace Xelerated’s Australia lead.
At the beginning of May, in Brisbane, Aerospace Xelerated hosted a pitch competition focused on sustainability in space (in partnership with Advance Queensland and the Queensland Government). We had a great day filled with activities and it was refreshing to see the room filled with forward-thinking people discussing innovative ideas to advance sustainable solutions for the aerospace industry.
Sustainability in space is an enormous challenge that we still don’t have all the answers to. The realities of governance and enforcement of regulations in space make sustainability a challenge that we haven’t figured out yet how to manage — even on Earth. There are some steps that companies and agencies can take, particularly around becoming responsible actors in space, like signing up to international agreements, but at the moment it is a very voluntary system.
This is why it was so important to hold an event like this. The engagement we got from the government, speakers, industry leaders, investors, startups and scaleups present was overwhelming! We had six companies present a 15-minute pitch to a live panel of judges at The Precinct Innovation Hub with members of the Boeing Human Spaceflight team dialling in from Houston, TX, USA.
My personal highlight was listening to the pitches, and envisioning all the possibilities of what they could bring to Boeing. The pitches were all of such a high standard! They all had technologies to address different challenges in sustainable space development, which made it so hard to pick a winner. I could see applications and possible engagement with all of them.
The judges had their work cut out deciding on just one winner, but after some deliberation, Queensland-based White Graphene were crowned champions, securing a proof of concept opportunity worth up to $100,000 AUD to develop the application of their boron nitride nanomaterials in the space and aerospace industries with Boeing. We’re really excited about this opportunity and looking forward to seeing how this partnership can tackle some of the crucial challenges around sustainability in space.
The pitch event gave us the opportunity to engage with startups and small companies in a way that more corporates should replicate. Through events like this, Boeing has also been able to try new technologies and see how they can impact our standard operating model. This engagement benefits both Boeing, the successful company and the startup industry in Queensland.
This was the second time we hosted a pitching competition like this. Last year, HINDSITE — a location-based e-learning platform built to capture, preserve, and deliver skilled knowledge for industries — won and returned this year as a presenter to share how they benefited from their engagement with Boeing.
We also had an exciting panel discussion about the sustainability challenges of the space industry. The makeup of the panel was really balanced with Nick Carter, Space Research Group Lead at CSIRO, representing the scientific communities views; Rosie Wall, Head of Corporate Operations at Gilmour Space, vocalising the commercial realities of the current space industry; and Heidi Hauf, Regional Sustainability Lead (APAC) at Boeing, as the sustainability thinker for the wholistic and long term approach. We had a very engaged discussion about what best practice sustainability looks like and how it could be incorporated into the scientific approach to space exploration, as well as the challenges of balancing sustainability with the possibilities of benefits that come from increased access to space.
The event also had a keynote by Tori Tasker, Senior Space Technology Officer at the Australian Space Agency (ASA). Her talk was amazing! The amount of potential in Australia to contribute to the global space industry is huge. It was so inspiring to hear the engagement that ASA has with global industry, from Katherine Bennell-Pegg becoming the first Astronaut candidate to train under the Australian flag, to the geographic advantage and capabilities we are developing in the country that are world-leading. It is clear that the future of the space industry in Australia is bright.
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