Spacetech - opportunities for business in space technology

Space technology offers a wide variety of business opportunities from the unexpected (concrete production, software, data handling) to the traditional (electronics, photovoltaics, instrumentation, sensors).  Spacetech will increase your awareness of the business opportunities and how to tap into them. 

Spacetech 2012, organised by County Durham Development Company and held at NETPark on February 9th gave delegates an insight into:

• What activities are being carried out in the UK regarding space technologies?
• How is this market currently structured? What is the role of each participant?
• What activities / what influence do NASA and ESA have in the UK?
• What is the role of the UK Space Agency and what opportunities does this present?
• What kind of businesses are involved in development and commercialisation of space technologies / what is the relationship between them?
• What are the major international programmes and their objectives? Who is involved (which organisations and their locations) / what is the process for getting involved?

Programme:

08.30 Registration

08.55 Welcome

Event Chair: SALEH AHMED, Assistant Director, UK Space Agency

09.00 The importance of space technology to the UK economy

MICHAEL LAWRENCE, Head of Special Projects, Technology Strategy Board

09.30 The market structure and how to tap into it

RUTH MALLORS, Director, Aerospace, Aviation and Defence Knowledge Transfer Network, host of the Space Special Interest Group

10.00 Coffee

10.20 Working on collaborative international projects

PROF RAY SHARPLES, Centre for Advanced Instrumentation, Durham University

10.50 The Square Kilometre Array Telescope - a £1.2BN euro opportunity

TIM STEVENSON, Square Kilometre Array Telescope Programme Office

11.20 STEM into Space: Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine and Space Exploration

DR SARALYN MARK, NASA

12.00 Lunch

13.00 Novel welding and joining technologies for space applications

CHRIS WISEMAN, TWI

Collaboration, innovation and time to market - an SME perspective

MIKE BERRIDGE. AWS

14.00 CONNECTING SPACE: DEVELOPING A WIRING BUSINESS FOR THE SPACE INDUSTRY

TERRY MCMANUS, TEKDATA

14.30 Opportunities in the North East

TOM SMYTH, Deputy Head – BIS Yorkshire Humber and the North East

15.00 Wrap up and close

Space Tech 2012 was organised in association with the Institute of Physics (IoP) www.iop.org