Late autumn 2019 the Space Hub Lund was held with more than eighty participants. The questions to answer were, amongst others “How can space science and technology add value to a sustainable society?” and “In what way could we utilize it to innovate and develop new business on earth?” The day was an opportunity to listen to what has been done, with insights and experiences from experts and to identify new initiatives within the area.
A number of experts gathered in Lund to give and get new insights. From ESA came Christophe Lasseur who is head of MELiSSA Project, Thomas Rohr, Head of Materials and Process Section and Ulrike Bohlmann, senior administrator at ESA.
Thomas Rohr, you have been talking about collaboration between the space and the non-space sector. What main possibilities do you see with the collaboration?
- We have a lot of commonalities with other sectors and It´s important to spin in well innovated solutions. We don´t have to develop them from scratch, we can adopt them and make use of them from space applications. The main challenge is the knowledge about that and it’s ideally to discuss it in a forum like this where it can reach out also to non-space entities and understand the state of the art where the challenges are, says Thomas Rohr. We also organize workshops like this in ESA.
Christophe Lasseur when you talk about circular systems – what would be the biggest challenge when we want to set up one?
- If you want to build a circular system the first thing you need to know is your technology, what you already using locally, your wastewater treatment, the food stream in the city, the air quality, your main industry and the waste you are producing. If you want to be circular you can’t just adapt an existing system easy. You may have to reconcile some of the best ways and to do that you need data and information, because it’s quite complex. You have to be able to simulate to understand the flow in order to build a circular system. The first thing to do is to know yourself better, says Christophe Lasseur.
Ulrike Bohlmann, senior administrator at ESA was also attending the event.
- It was a lively event with a lot of interaction, bringing people together who would normally not come together naturally. It was a very good initiative, says Ulrike Bohlmann.
See more in the video about the event!
The other speeches were held by Tobias Edman Swedish National Space Agency, Malin Larsson, Regional Manager AI Innovation of Sweden South and Viktor Lehtonen, Project manager, National Space Data Lab, Jens Lundström ESA Business Incubator and Andreas Oxenstierna, T-Kartor. The day was presented and moderated by Anna Stenstam (CEO, CR Competence AB).
The day continued with a workshop. The basis for the workshop was an inventory of future needs within the different organizations represented. The speakers and area experts held workshops in Material, Technology, Circular Systems and Space Data & AI and everyone were welcome to discuss challenges in enabling identified needs. The intention was to identify potential initiatives.
The Space Hub Lund day will be followed by several ½ day sessions to share learnings and insights. The ambition is to identify and secure enabling factors for progress in taking initiatives.
