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As part of Italy Pavilion’s education events, Italy-headquartered aerospace company Leonardo, together with its joint venture Telespazio, today brought to Expo 2020 Dubai an important event for participants and people who are curious about their #T-TeC contest, an open innovation activity dedicated to students and researchers from universities and research departments around the world. Now in its third edition, the annual #T-TeC contest aims to valorise the ideas and intuition of young people, promoting development and technological innovation in the space sector and imagining the technologies that will mark the near future.
#T-TeC is an initiative to enhance university research activities within a well-established “Open Innovation” process. Following a first edition held on 2019 when only Italian universities were invited, and a second edition held on 2020 also opened to European universities, this third edition has broaden its scope opening to universities from all over the World. Furthermore, the Evaluation Committee consists of representatives from Leonardo and its joint venture Telespazio, as well as the Italian Space Agency, European Space Agency and United Arab Emirates Space Agency.
“Developing new space technologies allows us to better understand the changes taking place on our own planet, and contribute to sustainable development,” explains Luigi Pasquali, coordinator of Leonardo space activities and CEO of Telespazio. “Innovating in space technology means investing in sustainability, but it is also true that innovation needs to be addressed to sustainability in space, to avoid over-crowded orbits that could put at risk satellite services our lives rely on.”
For the 2021 edition of #T-TeC, teams of students and researchers will challenge each other in four technological macro-themes of great importance to the present and future of the space sector: “Space Exploration”, “In-Orbit Servicing”, “GeoInformation Applications and Platforms”, and “Space Situation Awareness & Space Traffic Management”.
The event took place this morning at Italy Pavilion’s Amphitheatre, where students and researchers had an opportunity to find out more about #T-TeC 2021 contest. A number of distinguished participants gave their contribution, including Sultan Al Zeidi, Principle Engineer – Communications and Electrical Systems, Department of Space Missions at UAE Space Agency; Luigi Pasquali, Coordinator of Leonardo Space Activities and CEO of Telespazio; Pierpaolo Gambini, Senior Vice President Innovation and IP for Leonardo; Marco Brancati, Chief Technology Innovation Officer for Telespazio; Massimo Claudio Comparini, CEO of Thales Alenia Space Italia; and Michèle Lavagna, Tenured professor in Flight Dynamics, scientific sector, Department for Aerospace Science and Technology of the Politecnico di Milano.
The event, which took place from 11am, was moderated by the renowned Italian scientific journalist and writer Emilio Cozzi. The proceedings were also available to follow live on Italy Pavilion’s social networks.
