Space Economy: The Final Frontier

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to space uh my name is kahim Michelle sabag I'm the managing director of space 42 and I'm Donna Baki I'm the chief commercial officer of the exploration company so there are three things we want to cover together first uh how do we think about uh investment in space second is how the work that we do in space whether the services or the insights serve the economies and societies on earth and thirdly the role of the uee in the global uh space economy so uh I'll talk a little bit about investing in space um and first I'll tell you a little bit more about the exploration company so you have that background uh we are actually a European company based out of France Germany and Italy that focuses on inspace Transportation so all the vehicles that are that are getting us to the commercial space stations to the ISS and to the surface of the Moon and uh we're one of the companies that have been really successful in raising capital for within the space industry and I think one of the big reasons that we've been successful and that we're seeing such an renewed interest in the space industry is because we're seeing a lot of different countries now thinking about their space strategies and really working ambitiously to get there the UAE being one of them and so the what's interesting about the space industry is it usually starts with interest from governments and then expands into an ecosystem that will that will bring in private customers and and really create something that can be commercialized and we're you we've seen that with satcom and now with Earth observation and you're starting to see it more and more with exploration uh you know launcher rockets and companies like us uh and so you're seeing really new interesting business models that are that are being able to be monetized and you're seeing really interesting exits that are starting to Virgin space 42 uh being a company that's publicly traded I'm sure can uh as a great example of this uh so you know space is something that we're exploring you know no pun intended with and it and because it's so early you know High risk High reward I think PE investors are really seeing the benefit of being a part of this economy that's really expanding quite quickly and so let me talk quickly about how we as a space operator invest so this is the outside in perspective this is the inside outside perspective for sort of clarifications we're publicly traded on the adx we're pro in market cap we're probably the number fourth in terms of market up value in the world in terms of satellite space Pro uh provider of satellite Based Services um and our thought process and how do we deploy our capital is fourfold first we want to deploy in um programs and not projects space is very hard it's not for the faint-hearted and so when we make investments we have to take it the very long-term view that this is going to be something that we will be doing for the long term and something that will evolve over time so we have to have line of sight into how the technology will evolve how the markets will expand how we will hypers scale doing something that is oneof is not for space it's too expensive too hard it will not pay off rule number two is in doing so we have to be clear about what capabilities are going to be developing whether it's in the satcom space or the satcom arena whether it's in geospatial analytics or AI whether AI is embedded at the level of the service or AI is part of the optimizing the operation of our business but being obsessed about the idea of capability matters the third parameter is that probably is the most important is once we do something how do we hyperscale deploying a solution in space to connect a handful of devices because the connectivity is good and does something useful is okay the challenge and the opportunity is not to connect to few hundred or few thousand or even few hundred, devices the opportunity is how do I connect from space a billion of devices like the devices that we carry day in day out so hypers scaling has to be part of our mission and the last thing I want to say is that in doing so being able to deploy Capital against the growth of our organic business as well against Bolton acquisition is always frontend Center so while we are fortunate to have patient uh investors as part of our parent companies and public investors it's important that I think you appreciate how the management of a of a space company uh is thinking about deploying Capital now this is a good segue to moving to the second point I want to share with you so when you think about the impact of space on Earth I would posit that we're in the early Innings and I will again go to the example of um businesses like TOA or Rum or Global star that have provided over decades direct communication from space to devices so if you have a thya device here and somewhere in Asia you can make a phone call and it goes through space great but the challenge is you're still dealing with a B foke device and the same applies to all our competitors the next Frontier for us which is in the next 3 years is to move to a global constellation that will connect to all the devices that each one of us carry in our pocket and because of that we'll be able to move from a very valuable service that is the privilege of few hundred or few 2 million probably in total to all the billions and so in answering the question what is the impact that we have from services and space on societies and economies we have to think about the the idea of hypers skating and director device is certainly something that space 42 is focusing on what I would add to that is that we've actually really been benefiting a lot without knowing it from the work that's been done in Space over the several decades everything from solar panels air filtration LED lights cordless Electronics all of that is coming from work and R&D that was done originally for space exploration and what we're seeing today is that there's a renewed effort around R&D in space to help build Industries here on Earth so you know as you can imagine the environment in space is quite different than what we find here on Earth not only is there extreme temperatures and 300 times the level of radiation than we have here but you also have microgravity right that zerog gravity environment that makes things act differently than they would here on Earth so you can create new products new materials and things react differently in the space environment and we're seeing that have immense opportunity within R&D so uh and an example of this is that proteins crystallize differently in space in a microgravity environment than here on Earth which is enabling pharmaceutical companies to create pure vaccines and new types of treatment for diseases uh stem cells proliferate faster in space so that's helping more research uh for for biology but also for things like Coral Reeves that we could potentially help solve in space and bring back down to earth and so there's there's a lot to be learned from you know as a human perspective on exploration but we're also bringing a lot of it back down to earth to help build industry and solve problems that we have here today so let's talk now uh about the third topic which is is um the role of the UE in the global space economy um do you want to start Dona sure so uh as I mentioned we are a European company at at base uh but we look to do things very internationally differently than it's been done before because space also has a lot of geopolitical background to everything that you're doing and so we are looking to do everything collaboratively now the UAE is of particular interest to us uh because of the Ambitions that the country has and the way that the country has really approached in a very unique way how to build a program efficiently and get it done within an incredible amount of time and so uh I think you know Karim you've lived through it you can tell us a bit more about how this this was built here but as a company looking at the geopolitics of the world the UAE is an incredible place to want to partner because it's uniquely positioned uh it there we're friends with all here in the UAE and we we like to see that it's a it's um a country that is prone to action and that's looking to actually deliver things quite quickly and um in a in a way that is for the world so let me add a slowly complimentary perspective here space 42 came together through the merger of two UAE space champion bayat and yasat one of them was in the satellite communication domain the other one was in geospatial intelligence and artificial intelligence there is no precedent in the world of bringing these three capabilities together and so we're first out of the Starting Gate it's it's a it's a great privilege but it's super hard because there is no playbook for what we're doing and we have a view that there will be a convergence of Technologies there is a convergence of use cases that we go through day in day out and certainly there's a lot of ways to optimize our operations and so ultimately the industry will move in this direction but again the difficulty for me and my colleagues or the challenge is we're sort of writing the blueprint as we go along it's possible in the uee because there's a clear policy to advance the space sector and put it front and center and in no particular order I can refer to the UE Space strategy I can refer to the UE AI strategy I can refer to the next 50 so these are the next 50 objectives that the nation outlined 3 years ago when they celebrated their 50th birthday the creation of the UE nation and Behind these next 50 object objectives and plans there was a two-page document that was titled the 10 principles of the next 50 which talks about a diverse Diversified economy with Advanced Tech front and center with a diversified and expert talent pool and importantly in an unrestricted commitment to partnership to reach out to best-in-class athletes so in a sense what we're doing is tapping into these three nor ative policies and objectives and pillars that have been defined and so I've always said publicly that we were fortunate to be able to set up space for2 because the uee serves for us as a Sandbox it allows us to imagine things to put them into action to stumble because we are going to stumble but nevertheless to go up on our feet and do things uh that are super interesting and so we're very fortunate but I will also recognize uh that there's nothing that we're going to do that is exclusive to us I.E that we're going to do this on our own and so when we set up space 42 we talked about the four ways of working and the fourth one is very compatible with the U ways of thinking which is in everything we do we want to bring the best the best athletes whether they are within our organization or outside so if there's an opportunity for us to team up with the exploration company we will do so we have no ego um we already team came up with the likes of uh Microsoft so in a sense they are already investors in our parent company g42 uh we team up with Airbus so as we speak we have a sizable team at cap canaval about to launch our Taya for spacecraft um we team up with isai so yesterday there was an announcement about uh ajv that will bring the latest Earth observation Technologies in SAR and deploy them in terms of uh industrial model in the UAE so the point I want to emphasize is we're fortunate in the UAE that we have the policy framework we have the agencies support us we have multiple national champions and we only one of them and that I think puts the U on map I want to remind everyone as a sort of a closing comment that we have to remember that yasat was created in 2007 and I think the astronaut program was created in 2017 so the aspirations in space are very young Les less than 20 years and look how far the UA has advanced and so this I think should be a an example and inspiration so many other nations who are look up who look to space and say hm we want to be there it's perfectly doable thank you Dona thank you everyone for participating in this forum [Applause] [Music] I