As Chief Operating Officer of the Satellite Applications Catapult Lucy is responsible for supporting enterprises across the UK in understanding and exploiting the potential of space and satellites to create opportunities and transform businesses.With a background in Physics and Engineering, Lucy’s career highlights include launching two satellites that now provide communications for much of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and building a satellite operations centre in West Cornwall that operates a fleet of communications satellites.Lucy serves as a non-executive director on the boards of the Eden Project, Truro & Penwith College and the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership. She is an accomplished athlete.Lucy is an ardent believer in the Catapult vision “To innovate for a better world, empowered by satellites”. Many see the growing space industry as a potential source of economic growth; Lucy also sees it as a way of improving the future for everyone, and of building connections between people and communities that will transform the way we relate to each other.SynopsisThe world is in the early stages of a new digital revolution, with space technology increasingly at its heart. Satellites are now critical infrastructure, as fundamental to the global economy as the energy grid or internet, and space is a UK success story. In 2016, it contributed £13.7bn to our economy, and through the joint actions of organisations like the UK Space Agency and the Satellite Applications Catapult it is targeted to grow to £40bn by 2030.The UK leads the world in key disciplines including satellite manufacture, earth observation and communications. As the success of the sector grows, it is vital that the industry maintains confidence and momentum at a time when it is experiencing headwinds around UK involvement in the European space programme. To that end, this year the government announced its plans to create spaceports in the UK for the first time, and the industry has proposed a ‘Space Sector Deal’, aligned to the UK Industrial Strategy, which sends a strong signal that the UK means business.Lucy Edge will talk about the changing nature of the space industry, discussing the opportunities for business, the revolution in technology, and how the sector must evolve new ways of working to prosper in this new space age.
