Cosmic Sandbox is a multidisciplinary design thinking workshop aiming to forge a community of problem solvers. There will be interactive webinar sessions with the experts as part of the workshop to understand the landscape of earth observation application for disaster management and risk reduction from technology, law & policy, business, environment/climate science and community resilience building perspectives.

Guidelines of Sandbox workshop: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kIbxNq09Pws7OmuS8ncSzNu2WBrR7PyNpMEnIOaXNeQ/edit?usp=sharing

Webinar I | 13 Nov 2021 | 2.30pm - 4pm JST SPACE4DRM |

"Space for Disaster Risk Management "

Shirish Ravan, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), coordinates activities of the United Nations Platform for Space-based Information for Disaster Management and Emergency Response (UN-SPIDER) primarily in Asia and the Pacific, Vienna

Webinar II | 20 Nov 2021 |
Session 1: 4.30pm - 6.30pm JST

Topic: "Community resilience-building"

Litea Biukoto, Team Leader Risk Reduction, Pacific Community-SPC , Fiji

Topic: "Law and Policy"

Quentin Verspieren, Assistant Professor (Space Policy), The University of Tokyo, General Manager, Global Strategy, ArkEdge Space Inc., Associate Research Fellow, European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), Japan

Session 2: 7.30pm - 9.30pm JST

Topic: "Technology"

Taras Matselyukh, CEO and Founder at OPT/NET BV, Netherlands

Topic: "NewSpace & Business"

Luciano Giesso, International Sales Director, Satellogic, United States

DT workshop | 27 Nov 2021 |

Duration: 3-4 hrs (Tentatively)

With the Asia Pacific region facing immense challenges this century, including climate change, deforestation, and desertification, monitoring the planet has become even more crucial. One of the most common methods to do this require people going out into the field to make measurements, flying drones, and installing IOT devices in an effort to better understand what's really happening.

Earth observation satellites have the potential to enable much easier monitoring and management of our planet, but this technology has seen limited adoption to date.

This panel event invites industry experts to discuss the limitations of the Earth observation industry, and how these limitations are being overcome. In addition, addressing different collaborative methods of the Asia-Pacific region that increase the efficiency of Earth observation satellites through technological innovation and business collaboration.

Hosted by Taofiq Huq, CEO of Spiral Blue
Panellists include:

- Sebastian Chaoui, CEO of Arlula
- Aravind Ravichandran, Director of Strategy, Space of Tomorrow.io
- Venkateshwara Pillay, CEO of LatConnect60

It is recommended to use a desktop Google Chrome/Firefox browser to access the event.

Asia-Pacific Space Generation Online Workshop is a four-day workshop organized by SGAC to discuss significant topics related to the space sector in the Asia-Pacific region. The main purposes of the workshop are to identify recommendations for key regional issues faced by the space community, to be shared by SGAC at the United Nations Committee on Peaceful Uses for Outer Space, to build up interaction between young space communities and high-level space professionals in the Asia-Pacific region and to boost talent development for the next generation of space leaders in Asia-Pacific through a virtual platform.

Working group topics of this year’s AP-SGOW are as below.

1) Space Biology - Improving Lives in Asia-Pacific
2) Ensuring inclusivity across the Asia-Pacific region
3) Rise of space rovers and robotics in Asia-Pacific region
4) Value of space entertainment
5) Mars:2026? Role of the Asia-Pacific in sending humans to Mars and beyond

This panel event aims to engage APRSAF members with the work of the Global Expert Group on Sustainable Lunar Activities (GEGSLA). The GEGSLA was established by the Moon Village Association in 2021, and will report to UN COPUOS in 2022. The event will give APRSAF members an opportunity to learn about GEGSLA’s approach and provide feedback which represents specific regional interests. Areas covered by expert panelists include information sharing, governance, safe operations, and interoperability.

Many national space programmes globally and in Asian region are striving to create domestic, self-sustained, vibrant, and capable space industry and supply chain that can serve future national space demands. The emphasis of space programmes shifts from flagship projects to engagement of the industry and development of the right skills, capabilities and infrastructure with long lasting benefit for the country. The sovereignty and resilience of the national space activities is particularly important in today's era of uncertainty and fluctuations on the global and regional geopolitical scene.

The purpose of the event is to share experiences of countries in the APRSAF region that have in the past, or are currently building up their national space capacity. The focus is on sharing lessons learned, and best practice, and touches on topics such as: supply chain engagement, national infrastructure, human capital development, academia engagement, Government policies, technology transfer etc.

The event will be based on a virtual panel discussion with around 4-5 well-regarded stakeholders from national space organizations, who oversee the national space activities. They will discuss their own experiences, lessons learnt and plans with regards to building comprehensive national space capacity.  The host will raise discussion points to help share their thoughts and experiences in what factors they see as important in building domestic space industry for the future benefit of the country and region.

The session is planned to take 60 minutes in total, with 15 minutes devoted to Q&A. The host will facilitate an interactive audience engagement throughout the discussion.  Q&A from the audience will also be supported at the end. A gender balanced panel is planned with participants from local space agencies and space industry.