Anke collaborated with Fonds Soziokultur on behalf of DLR and assessed the Techlab participants’ pitches. DLR acts as Germany's national space agency, managing the country's space programme and contributions to the European Space Agency (ESA).

Part of my work for the German Space Agency is looking for services and applications that can utilise space data. We’re not focused on any particular sector or topic, we want people to be more aware of the various things space data is used for, which include various uses of satellite technology such as weather forecasting, GSP navigational systems, instant bank transfers, verifying news, supporting military activities, help with urban planning and monitoring climate change. Space technology may be costly, but our data shows how much we need it for day-to-day life, not just space exploration. 

We partner with businesses who use space tech for commercial solutions, and who are interested in partnering on projects that could turn a profit. 

By working with organisations such as FSK, we create bigger networks and enter communities we haven’t previously accessed. It’s an exchange of knowledge as we look at what space data could potentially do for them while learning about their work and thinking about what a collaboration might look like.

The Techlab project was a valuable way to seed information with the potential to yield strong results in the future. The teams were highly motivated by doing something meaningful for their communities, even if they weren’t yet focused on profitable opportunities in line with our commercial partners. Although we didn’t take their projects forward this time, it was still a worthwhile exercise and we’d be happy to do again in the future.

We have lots of collaborations and partnerships at different levels. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t but it’s essential to keep trying them – both for the sake of telling people about the infinite possibilities of space data and for us to find new opportunities to use it.