Conference Update – Downlink Issue 11
The SATELLITE 2017 conference program now features a keynote speaker on each day of the program! Will Porteous, General Partner and COO of RRE Ventures will be our luncheon keynote speaker on Monday, March 6 speaking about the role of private financing in commercial space development at 12:15 p.m. (Ballroom A). Kicking off our big Tuesday morning opening general session will be keynote speaker Jeff Bezos, Founder, Blue Origin and Founder & CEO of Amazon, who will appear on stage to discuss his company’s new launch technology at 8:20 a.m. Our Wednesday government and military keynote speaker will be USAF Major General David Thompson, Vice Commander of Air Force Space Command speaking about new developments in commercial space cooperation at 1:45 p.m. in Conference Room 207. Finally, on Thursday, we have our closing day keynote speaker: Planet Co-Founder Robbie Schingler, who will be presenting about the new “global sensing revolution” and exploring how sensing satellites will provide more imagery and data about the Earth than we ever imagined. Planet recently acquired Google’s Terra Bella (formerly Skybox) system and now operates the largest imagery fleet in history.
SATELLITE 2017’s government-focused conference program also features more U.S. military speakers than we’ve ever had on a previous program. In addition to General Thompson, this year’s program also includes USAF Col. Shahnaz Punjani and Dale Hayden from Air Force University (“Milspace in the 21st Century,” Monday, March 6 at 11:00 a.m.), USAF Maj. Brent Ziarnick and Michael “Coyote” Smith (“U.S. Space Corps,” Monday, March 6 at 1:45 p.m.), Lt. Col. Thomas Schilling, Chief, Commander’s Action Group (“Range and Reusable Rockets,” Monday, March 6 at 3:00 p.m.). The government program also includes George Nield, Associate Administrator of Commercial Space Transportation for the FAA and John Hill, Principal Director of Space Policy, OSDP for the Commercial Space Situational Awareness panel on Tuesday, March 7 at 3:00 p.m., as well as speakers from DARPA, NOAA, NASA and more.
We are pleased to confirm our final line-up of judges and speakers for the debut of the Startup Space Entrepreneur Pitch contest at SATELLITE 2017! This Shark Tank-esque competition will put 20 new businesses on the Exhibit Hall stage (all day Tuesday, March 7) to compete in a five-minute pitch battle for a prize package that includes guaranteed meetings with Space Angels Network, RRE Ventures and Astia Capital and admission to SATELLITE 2018 and NewSpace 2017!
Our investor judges panel includes:
Chad Anderson, CEO, Space Angels Network
Justin Cadman, Senior Vice President, Investment Banking, Raymond James
Victoria Pettibone, Managing Director, Astia
Will Porteous, General Partner & COO, RRE Ventures
David Fischer, Senior Manager of Strategic Development, Ball Aerospace
Rafferty Jackson, Strategy, Development and Legal, Astia Angels & Principal, Jack Industries
Maher Ezzeddine, CEO, Ideanco and President, Harvard Business School Aerospace Alumni Group
Phillip Spector, Of Counsel, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy
Steven Jorgenson, Partner, Satellite Finance Group
Thomas W. Watts, Principal, Radius Capital Partners LLC
Van Espahbodi, Co-Founder, COO, Starburst Accelerator
Louis Zacharilla, Director of Development, SSPI and, WTA
Peter Platzer, CEO, Spire