Fireside Chat with European Space Agency

We were excited to invite Gonzalo from European Space Agency for our Fireside Chat!

The event video from Youtube can be found here.

About European Space Agency (ESA)

The European Space Agency is an intergovernmental organization of 22 member states dedicated to the exploration of space. Established in 1975 and headquartered in Paris, ESA has a worldwide staff of about 2,200 in 2018 and an annual budget of about €6.68 billion in 2020.

ESA Special Guest — Gonzalo Martin de Mercado works as part of the ESA Space Solutions.

• His main focus is delivering space-related innovation and bridging the gap between public and private funding. Before working for ESA, Gonzalo worked in the space industry in Spain. Gonzalo’s background is Telecommunications Engineering.
• Gonzalo Martin de Mercado has always been looking further ahead. After failing on his astronaut childhood dream, he found a new mission in bringing Europe (as a collective) to Europa (Jupiter 6th largest moon) and finding life there… He spend the last 20 years maturing this idea while working in parallel on technology and business through ESA, ISDEFE (ES), ATOS (ES) and a couple of short-lived startups.
• It was only after listening to Mike Oldfield’s “The Songs of Distant Earth” that Gonzalo realised we are not going to Europa unless we solve many other issues on Earth. That was his first contact with the “NewSpace” philosophy: Before going to space, we may have to go under water first, or inside a FinTech algorithm, or even onto a self-driving car… Gonzalo worked closely with exciting ventures in several industrial sectors just to learn that technology without business means nothing, but teams are all. That is why he frequently acts as lecturer in universities, schools, summits and innovation hubs, to stimulate imagination whenever possible, and to find crazy people willing “To boldly reach where no human has ventured before”

What topics we will cover in the discussion

• Space Assets
• Satellite
• Star Link & Elon Mus
• The role of ESA in Telecom innovation
• & much more…

The event was streamed Live on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhi3OIljAM8