You need to see it, to be it
On a recent Saturday at an aircraft hangar on a Royal Navy airbase in Cornwall, UK was filled to the rafters with hundreds of young girls. These girls were coding, launching rockets, building robots, using flight simulators and engineering green-powered cars.
I had the pleasure of also being there, representing Slingshot Aerospace, to speak on a panel about my career in space, and to demonstrate our satellite collision avoidance training product, Laboratory.
Photography for TEC Girls- Reach For The Sky. Courtesy: Julia Wrzesinska
The girls loved getting hands on with tracking common spacecraft (like the ISS), and identifying potential threats to their safety, just like the real-life recent Russian GEO satellite Slingshot tracked last week, as well as the debris from an exploded satellite.
Also at the event were women who have the most incredible careers in aerospace. From fast-jet pilots to spacecraft engineers, to aviation CEOs, the girls had a chance to ask us what our careers are like on an average day, the challenges we face, and advice for how to get into the industry.
The old saying ‘you need to see it, to be it’ was the goal of our interactions and I can confidently say we have gained a few more satellite hunters of the future, who are passionate about sustainability and keeping space safe for their own futures.
The whole event was put on by an amazing organisation, TecGirls, a charity run by women in one of the most economically deprived parts of Europe. TecGirls have one mission, to show young girls that STEM careers are for them, and that the world needs them!
