Ranchi, Jharkhand | August | 08, 2021 ::
TEDxKanke Webinar Series: Outlier Series
Title of Talk: Democratizing Space
Speaker: Naman Bajpai
TEDxKanke, an independent TED event organized its 29th version of the webinar series based on the theme “Outlier Series” on 7Th August 2021, IST at 3.00 PM. Having covered a long journey in multiple topics, this version of the webinar was entitled “Democratizing Space” wherein Naman Bajpai, 15-year-old and wonder kid was the speaker. The Outlier Series is to connect with all wonder kids who are working on unique ideas and creating a better platform and ecosystem for young kids.
Naman Bajpai is a 15-year-old Entrepreneur, Founder of Dynamic Rocketry and Krishi connect, His dream Is to Democratize Space. He is an Ardent Cyclist, Photographer, and double merit holder in the green Olympiad. He is in Class Xth at Atomic Energy Central School 4 of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Anushaktinagar, Mumbai.
Naman started his talk that how he focussed and utilised his time during COVID 19. He considers Pandemic as a blessing in his journey. He is one of the youngest CEO and Founder of Dynamic Rocketry and he is working towards making space accessible to people.
He and his team are currently working on many projects and so he talked about his initiatives and future project:-
1. Farm Sat is a satellite using hyperspectral imaging to predict changes in the environment. It will be beneficial to study crop patterns, energy-producing Nuclear power plants and many more industries like shipping and mining.
2. Starbus- A satellite has 2 parts. The experimental and maintenance systems. Maintenance systems contain all sorts of equipment such as propulsion to keep the satellite in orbit, communication to the ground power by a solar cell etc. He mentioned that the problem arises when a scientist or a company designs the experiments but it is not in their capacity to build the maintenance system. Identifying such problem in satellite, his team are currently building a plug and play system for such experiments and satellites that are modular and faster.
3. Hawk rocket series- The Hawk rocket series will be a group of rockets with 100% reusability and almost zero! carbon footprint. It will be made using state of the art technologies such as additive manufacturing and many more. It will have 3 variants for 3 different types of payload capabilities from 100kg to 500kg and 3metric tons
At the age of 15, it looks that his knowledge and perception about Space research is at the next level. He told that when he was at 12-13 years, he was fascinated by Sky and Stars and his curious mind was eager to know more about it. He started getting information from the internet and also joined the Linkedin platform to connect with that community. His interest brought him to connect with many such people who started sharing information about space and the Universe. He formed a company in the name of ‘Dynamic Rocketry’ and he is the CEO. His team constitutes of around 25 students and all are basically at the school level.
Naman has great confidence, his ideas and vision would surprise most of us. He wants to explore the immense possibility of space and wants to Democratize space for everyone. When he was asked to explain and describe this new concept of ‘Democratizing Space’, he shared his thought and told that it is the power of people to make Space research for everyone. He is also confident that there is huge scope and opportunity in this area.
Naman raises thoughtful concern over the space industry which is dominated by a handful of Public sector companies and Private players. The Pubic Sector constitutes 79% and the Private sector constitutes 21% of the 500 billion dollar space industry. The Primary reason behind this dominance is the high operating cost.
Naman wishes to establish democratization in the space sector and he suggests a three-step formula to achieve this: i) Creation of new Facilities ii) Reduction in Cost iii) Educating Children
Naman believes that all hope is not lost, due to the new space policy by ISRO many new companies have started working on reducing costs. This will create a new space race which can prove to be a boon for the human race.
The session was so informative and enriching that many participants asked questions to Naman directly. Mr Pankaj, Mr Vishnav Nair, Ankit Tripathy, Kailash Manjhi, Mr Shrivastava and Akshaan Chandra asked questions related to Space. How the rural students will make a career in space as they have limited resources. Naman told that nowadays, everyone is connected to the internet and technology so it is not important to be in big cities. What about Space Debris? Answered to this by Naman, It’s serious problem and the entrepreneur and Space research organization are working to make it free from debris. Is it possible to enjoy spacewalk as we see in the movie? He answered that every two weeks, astronauts do spacewalk for 6-7 hours and explore and observe the space. Akshaan Chandra, a class VIII student from DPS Ranchi asked about possibilities in future what they are seeing in a fictional movie about Space. He told that there is a possibility and it could happen in future.
In the end, he humbly mentioned that let’s be curious and innovative and always have the confidence to believe “Sky is not the limit”. It is important to Dream Big, Start small, have Passion and keep getting the blessings of parents and teachers.
The session was attended by students from different schools like Sri Agrasen School, Bhurkunda, DPS Ranchi and Atomic Energy Central School, Mumbai and many dignitaries from corporates and educational institutions. The participants who joined on Zoom had also interacted with Naman and asked a question directly. There were a total of 70 participants on Zoom and many had watched on Facebook live and TEDxkanke Youtube live.
The recorded session of this webinar can be viewed on TEDxKanke’s Youtube channel and Facebook page. TEDxKanke Curator, Rajeev Gupta, and his team presented thankful gratitude for his presence. This webinar session could be a success by the extensive contribution of Kanishka Poddar, Bijendra Sharma, Subham Sharma, Gaurav Kumar, Kailash Manjhi, Shivangi Choudhary, Chander Mohan Chugh, Praveen Rajgarhia, Yuvraj Anand, Atul Aggarwal, Rohit Tripathi, and Shravan Jajodia.
