Introducing the 7 Finalists for the All-Virtual NewSpace BPC, two more competition Judges, and event registration info
Friends and supporters of space entrepreneurship:
Hard to believe the next All-Virtual BPC is only 11 days away. As before, we are here with 7 really excellent and compelling teams, competing for both attention by a new audience, and a $5000 grand prize sponsored by Foundation for the Future.
So let’s take a look!
aSpace – https://www.aspace.company
Our satellite-as-a-service model will be highly beneficial for public and private organisations with a platform for intelligence gathering within existing ecosystem using our proven product at an unmatched cost; enhancing ground personnel’s productivity, enabling them to sustain the gains in the fight to secure domains, and in the process, support and foster the local aerospace sub-sector.
Digantara – https://www.digantara.co.in
Digantara is building world’s first space based active surveillance platform to detect, track and predict RSO’s in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The goal of the company is to change the way Mission design and operations are carried out in the industry today. Once deployed, our satellite constellation will provide high fidelity data at 10x higher resolution than the current industry standards, effectively elevating space governance.
GeoJump – https://www.geojump.space
GeoJump takes SmallSats and payloads to GEO and other unique orbits via rideshare opportunities using lunar flyby trajectories. This helps customers get to the most valuable orbits quickly without needing to manifest their own launch vehicles, decreasing the overall cost of missions for the NewSpace economy.
Innova Space – http://www.innova-space.com
We will launch into space the first low-cost picoSatellite constellation in Latin America, giving global communication access where there is no connection.
Intergalactic Education – https://www.intergalacticeducation.com
Intergalactic Education LLC is a Maryland-based software studio. The company has developed a suite of entertaining games that teach adolescent students about STEM and the space careers of the future. We use a freemium licensing model to attract educators and mobile users to our apps, which provide analytics on proficiency and allow for solar system discovery. We also have a microgravity e-sports game called Spaceball that offers in-app purchasing and in-game billboard advertising opportunities.
Kall Morris Inc – https://www.kallmorris.com
KMI is an orbital debris research and solution development company with proprietary software and exclusive hardware for Active Debris Removal (ADR) that is time- and cost-efficient to protect critical assets that connect our modern world.
Virtual Satellites – https://www.virtualsatellites.space
We are developing a new technology alternative to conventional satellite communication. We call this technology the (Virtual Satellite) because it creates a long-range communication channel from transmitter to receiver without a physical intermediate orbital satellite. We think that this technology will be the new generation of satellite communications.
TWO NEW JUDGES ROUND OUT THE TRIO FOR THE FEB 18 VIRTUAL BPC
In addition to Dennis Stone, who we profiled last time, we now welcome a returning judge, and one here for the first time – but nevertheless a name known to many in the space advocacy community.
Eva-Jane Lark
Eva-Jane Lark is a Senior Wealth Advisor with BMO Nesbitt Burns, one of Canada’s largest full-service investment firms. For over 25 years, she has provided expert advice to her clients on a wide variety of investment and wealth management issues.
When not busy helping her clients, Eva has revived her childhood passion for seeing humanity live and thrive beyond Earth, She has researched the state of the space industry, presenting papers at space conferences starting with the “Investment Financing of Exploration”. She has been an invited judge (for several NewSpace Business Plan Competitions) and keynote speaker, a moderator, panelist and speaker discussing topics including: financing for new space companies and markets; business case issues facing Space-Based Solar Power as a future energy source, and ISRU/space mining; and for her insights as a keen observer of the emerging new space industries. She was among the contributors to the NSSO’s (National Security Space Office) Space-Based Solar Power Architecture Study in 2007, with her work featured as the study’s central business case analysis. She is also an active investor in publicly-traded space companies and an angel investor in the private space industry.
Innovation is another major area of focus and interest. Eva has regularly observed a connection between Research and Development spending and prosperity and is starting to explore this relationship further.
Eva is also a fledgling artist and co-host of Paint Party Friday – a weekly web based check-in blog/community where artists can share what they have painted each week.
Walt Anderson
Born and raised in the Washington D.C. area, Walt Anderson has gone on to create and support numerous innovative organizations throughout the United States during his decades-long tenure in the telecommunications and space industries. Walt Anderson, who also goes by Walt Anderson or Walt C. Anderson, established himself early in his career, with a tenacity and vision that has brought forth a track record of success.
Today, Walt Anderson serves as Founder & CEO of Avealto, a UK-based company whose mission is to finance, build, and operate a fleet of High Altitude Platforms (HAPs). Avealto envisions hundreds of uncrewed stratospheric, long duration telecommunications platforms to provide mobile telephony, broadband communications, backhaul, broadcasting, and other hosted payloads.
Prior to Avealto, Walt Anderson founded Mid-Atlantic Telecom, where he served as Chairman & CEO until the company was acquired by Frontier Communications for US$19M in 1993. Mid-Atlantic created and operated a state-of-the-art digital network for voice and data in the Mid-Atlantic regions.
Walt Anderson is a celebrated serial entrepreneur, but it wasn’t just because of Mid-Atlantic Telecom and Avealto. He also founded numerous other telecommunications companies early in his career, including Esprit Telecom, Plc. (ESPRY – NASDAG & EASDAQ), which took advantage of early telecommunications deregulation in the EU countries and sold for US$985M in 1999, Telco Communication Group, Inc. (TCGZ – NASDAQ), which provided a discount “dial around” service through the United States and sold for US$1B in 1997, and Erol’s Internet, the largest dial-up internet provider in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, which sold for US$35M in cash and US$49M in stock in 1998.
In addition to his contributions to the telecommunications sector, Walt Anderson was an early-stage investor in various private space ventures throughout the 1990s to today. One of his first undertakings in the space industry was co-founding the International Space University in 1988. Walt not only funded the university’s initiatives, he also offered advice and guidance to the University’s President and Board of Directors during its first six years of start-up operations.
Walt was one of the first leaders in promoting the commercial development of space, paving the way for the ‘astropreneurs’ of today. He believes this initiative is about more than space exploration, it’s about resolving the challenges that exist on Earth today and working towards a better tomorrow for all mankind.
Register for “Conversations for the Future”, Feb 18th event HERE: https://www.f4f.space/event-details/c4ffebruary2022