Jonathan Ortmans (10:45)

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Maria Varmazas (11:28)

Today's guest is Jonathan Ortmans, President of the Global Entrepreneurship Network, and we chatted at the Beyond Earth symposium in Washington, D.C. two weeks ago.

Unknown Speaker (11:39)

We really began with our mission about 15 years ago to try to convince the rest of the world that Silicon Valley didn't have a monopoly on entrepreneurship. And it's generally built on the notion that if you're going to build and grow economies and create opportunities for all, that new firm formation is a vital element of that, given that almost all the net new jobs come from firms less than five years old. And so the work we do is multifaceted. We look at building an enabling environment for entrepreneurs that both includes policymakers. So we work with most major governments around the world with their innovation and entrepreneurship leadership. And that's mostly around how do we make sure that they're more savvy to this entrepreneurial new firm formation culture, whereas many of them become from a much more traditional Just look at the world in black and white terms between big business and small business, how do we get them to understand it's actually around new business and old business as much as anything else. And so helping them to understand innovation and how government plays a vital role in that setting the rules and incentives. The second thing is we work a lot with the research community, very, very important to make sure that we elevate the caliber of deep research going into understanding, both in terms of economic research, for example, this process. And then we work with entrepreneurs, we work with investors, and then of course we work with what we call the ecosystem builders, the sort of community leaders that are building the organizations that support them. So what that really gives us is a really wonderful, global, rich, diverse network of everything from universities and accelerators doing the training to the builders and backers themselves, to the policymakers that have to set that right environment. And as a result we're pretty much seeing operations around the world where there's almost no community in the world that doesn't think that entrepreneurs can thrive there, specifically in space.

Maria Varmazas (13:44)

Can you tell me a bit about like your organization's activities there?

Unknown Speaker (13:47)

Absolutely. So we don't have within gen a very independent division for every single sector and industry.

Maria Varmazas (13:58)

Right.

Unknown Speaker (13:59)

But we do in space. We have gen space. And part of the reason we do that is that it crosses all potential industry applications and of course that it's naturally like us, it's global. So our essential work here is ready twofold. The first is that we are helping to bring space agencies up to speed on this whole dimension of the role of entrepreneurs, innovators from the bottom up in innovating through these solutions. A lot of the time when we first got involved in this, we were dealing with big institutions and governments that had come from a very different culture, that came from the sort of Lockheed Martin and Boeing culture. The primes, they didn't come from the, well, let me just say, they didn't come from the SpaceX culture. So the idea that you could actually, you know, build something from the bottom up. And so we've been trying to help them to adapt to that culture a lot of the time. We've got a lot of scientists, we've got a lot of, you know, security people, national security people, we've got a lot of corporate culture that's been around. So what we've been trying to do is to help them think how do they go faster? Agility, efficiently agility. And also how do we make sure that the problems we're trying to solve are being properly communicated in a two way flow between Innovators and entrepreneurs that can be that nimble. But also of course, the institutions that have, you know, that unique and long term experience and knowledge around what it really takes to do this at scale. The second part is of course, the astrapreneurs themselves, these new space entrepreneurs.

Maria Varmazas (15:37)

I love that phrase.

Unknown Speaker (15:38)

Yes. The idea of actually convincing them that there is a complete relevance to almost every form of new firm formation, innovation that's going on that's related to space.

Maria Varmazas (15:53)

Yeah.

Unknown Speaker (15:54)

You know, so some of the people that we would talk to who were in simple IT work, you know, suddenly thinking about, oh well, we can get the temperatures we need for servers in space, you know, much more efficiently when we're trying to do quantum computer technology hardware, for example.

Maria Varmazas (16:09)

And now we've got networks in space and that, yeah, now we have networks.

Unknown Speaker (16:12)

In space and we've got so many other areas. So I think it's the question of what we're trying to do is bring the traditional, I say traditional, but over the last 15 years, this exceptional performance that we've got on behalf of people that are testing ideas in a very deep way, together with the challenges that are needed in space and take a little bit of the romance out of it, frankly, and get straight into the dynamics of. By the way, this is actually the possibility to build a company.

Maria Varmazas (16:47)

Yeah. You can make a business out of this.

Unknown Speaker (16:48)

You can make a business out of this. It's not just about pipe dreams, right? Well, I don't want to call them pipe dreams. I think they're all realistic dreams. But I mean, it's not about, it's a little bit less about the big aspirations and it's more around how do I actually translate that into very specific, you know, doable pieces of it.

Maria Varmazas (17:06)

That is such a challenge too, to make that business case. But it's, it's when you find that business case, I mean, that is the, that is what everyone's trying to figure out. But it's so fascinating to hear those success stories of when people figure out you can do this incredible application and there is a customer for this and there's something practical that can be made. It's always amazing to see that happen. I guess I should ask how do we set astrapreneurs up for success? How do we do that?

Unknown Speaker (17:32)

The first thing to do is to help them understand the dynamics of the institutional part of space. And that is something that most people have not really had the opportunity to witness because it's been very much part of behind closed doors work of government, you know, in years past. So I think the most important thing we can be doing is, you know, exposing them to those, you know, those, those infrastructures. Secondly, but more importantly, exposing, you know, the public sector in institutions and the larger universities and research institutions, trying to expose them to what is a very messy dynamic world of the startups. So but I think the most important thing we can do is to help them see the vision, see the dream, see the kind of things that, you know, that we see the industry laying out an example of a few early adapters to that who've taken technology. So for example, you know, one of the companies in our gen space community is Rhodium Scientific.

Maria Varmazas (18:32)

Yes.

Unknown Speaker (18:33)

You know, and when they founded, when, you know, when she was getting into space in the early days, she didn't think she was getting into space. I mean, she was developing something for other, other, you know, patents. But if you expose them to the fact, by the way, this little sensor you've got that measures heat and humidity at exceptional performance could actually be used to be able to provide the necessary data to track the movement of obviously products going up and down to the space station. So, you know, that kind of application is something that a lot of entrepreneurs and startups don't understand, that they have a potential space application. So you say, what can we do for them? So right now we need to get them involved in the vision and allow them to think with those people that are facing those design challenges. I mean, when we hear, as we, as I did today, you know, about what an architectural design looks like for habitation on the moon, you realize there's a billion things go on. But I love the analogy. It's just like, you know, how does a big public service project build a whole new city for which people like the Chinese and you know, the leadership in places like Saudi Arabia where they can afford to build an old, new city, you know, the complexity of that, it all comes down. It's all mapped out, Every minute of it, every piece of it is all, you know, carefully done in advance. And using the analogy of that makes me think there just so many opportunities for startups, you know, or people who are, shall I say, are innovative, disruptive thinkers to be applying that skill set to be addressing the kind of needs that we have in space. So I think part of our role, you know, is not just to say how do we do this at the institutional level with the space agencies, how do we get them more adept with the startup community and how do we help?

Maria Varmazas (20:11)

How do we find the people, how.

Unknown Speaker (20:13)

Do we actually Find the people and make those connections between the innovators that frankly know how to do this, but also know how to do this and get it financed through the private sector.

Maria Varmazas (20:22)

There you go. That's.

Unknown Speaker (20:22)

Which is a different, different model to what this industry has had up to now.

Maria Varmazas (20:26)

And the people are learning. It's great to see that happening. All right, so I feel like this is a great tee up for the event.

Unknown Speaker (20:32)

We have a week called Global Entrepreneurship Week, which is, which is now. And Global Entrepreneurship week happens in 200 countries. It's about just over 40,000 events hosted by about 20,000 organizations.

Maria Varmazas (20:46)

My goodness.

Unknown Speaker (20:46)

And those events are all around. They're hosted by entrepreneurs with a mission of reaching out to communities of people who never thought about becoming an entrepreneur. And so the idea here is to get a much bigger deal flow of people kicking the tires, figuring out at some point, might I be part of a team that figures out a better way of doing something so really inspirational, inspiring citizens across the world, particularly in cultures that have not done this to consider entrepreneurship. And obviously we have a lot happening in space because space is one of those areas where we can present people with a dream which is beyond excitement. But then when you say actually you could be part of that solution in a small way, like we've been discussing, it's very exciting. So this year with Global Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurship Week, we are so proud to be doing several events that are focused on astro preneur development. How do we inspire more people to engage in the process? In a way, it's a global campaign promoting and evangelizing entrepreneurship. But we were particularly keen, particularly in light of following on the AI and the deep tech revolution, to get more of those people to be thinking about how do I apply that now in, you know, in a, in a, in a space setting. And we'll be specializing on a space on. On a space World cup for startups in November 2025. And it's going to be very.

Maria Varmazas (22:24)

We'll be right back.

Jonathan Ortmans (22:33)

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Maria Varmazas (23:08)

Welcome back. Let's close out our show today with a Martian mystery that has a potential new clue to figuring it all out. Thanks to some heavy computational lifting by supercomputers. And the mystery is this how did Mars get its moons, Phobos and Deimos? They could all be thanks to a cosmic twist of fate and a shattered asteroid. A new study led by NASA's Ames Research center suggests that an asteroid passing a little too close to Mars might have been ripped apart by the planet's gravity researchers. Simulations showed fragments of the destroyed asteroid scattered, with some escaping into space while others collided and ground down into debris. Over time, this material could have settled into a disk around Mars. Imagine Mars having a ring and then eventually clumping together to form the Red Planet's two tiny moons, not entirely dissimilar from current theories on how our own moon was formed. If that sounds familiar. And this matters for two reasons. For one, it offers a fresh take on the origins of Mars moons, challenging two long standing theories that the moons were either captured asteroids or debris from a giant impact. Secondly, it also explains how the moons could form far from Mars surface, which is something that other models have struggled to do. And it just ends up that the JAXA led Martian Moons Exploration Sample Return Mission, or mmx, which is launching soon, they say will collect samples from Phobos to test these ideas. The MMX will have NASA's Megane instrument aboard. And Megane, which is short for the Mars Moon Exploration with Gamma rays and neutrons, is also the Japanese word for glasses. That's super cute. With Megane, the goal is to piece together more of the story of how Phobos and Deimos came to be. If Mars moons are actually cosmic leftovers from an asteroid's dramatic breakup, it could reshape how we think about moon formation across the solar system. And that is it for T minus from November 25, 2024, brought to you by N2K CyberWire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@spare.n2k.com we'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. If you like the show, please share a rating and review in your podcast app. Also, please fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to space2k.com we're privileged that N2K CyberWire is part of the daily routine of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector. From the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies, N2K makes it easy for companies to optimize your biggest investment your people. We make you smarter about your teams while making your team smooth smarter. Learn how@n2k.com this episode was produced by Alice Carruth. Our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iban. Our executive editor is Brandon Karpf. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilpy is our publisher and I am your host, Maria Vermazis. Thanks for listening. We will see you tomorrow. T.