Ingram Kamalagharan (UK Space Agency): An invitation to talk

Ingram gave a brief overview of the UK Space Agency’s role in funding and co-funding space activities in the UK, and encouraged interested audience members to get in touch.

Transcript

I’ve been asked to speak very briefly, while I’m here. I have come from the UK Space Agency, and I’m primarily here because I wanted to learn about this, I wanted to learn about blockchain, this is something we’re actually really interested in. As Katherine was saying, the UK Space Agency and quite a few other government organisations are really interested in space technologies and growing the space sector in the United Kingdom. We actually do have a number of different programmes within the UK Space Agency, where we are investing actively in companies, in new startups, in new technologies, things that are going to be pushing technology for the future, for the future of the United Kingdom and the world.

I work specifically for a programme which is called ARTES. This is a programme that is actually run primarily by the European Space Agency, and a number of European countries, member states, subscribe money into that programme, so the United Kingdom does that as well. We use that programme to develop new technology here, new companies, so my day-to-day job is looking at anything from one person developing something, to huge companies, huge organisations. As Katherine said, within the UK Space Agency we’ve funded the reaction engine’s work on Sabre, it also covers everything from Earth observation, telecommunications, applications, so the use of space data. There’s a huge amount of data generated by satellites and by spacecraft, by the ISS, and how do we use that data. There’s hundreds and hundreds of companies that come to us every month with ideas, with concepts, with proposals for how we can use that data for everyday life, for things that are going to make our lives better.

So yeah, it was really just to say we are interested, we are involved, and that’s exactly the reason why I’m here. Blockchain is something that’s quite new in terms of the application for it in space. I will admit right now that I don’t know very much about it, I don’t know what the use cases are for it in space, and that’s why I’m here, I’m here to learn about that. Anyone who has ideas, who has proposals where they need help, they need funding to develop something that’s going to be used with space, please feel free to come and talk to me, and I can have a look at how we can possibly help. The existence of the UK Space Agency is growing, and it is to help with high-risk… Any ventures in space are incredibly high risk, as Vinay said, it’s incredibly expensive and incredibly high risk. So we’re here to help de-risk that a little bit by co-funding, giving access to facilities, be it here in the UK or through the European Space Agency. So yes, please do feel free to come and have a chat — thank you very much! [applause]

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