As an alumni of the Italian Society for International Organization – SIOI UNA Italy I had the unique opportunity to apply for specialised Master degree in Space Institutions and Policies, organised by SIOI in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of foreign affairs, the italian space agency and the European Space agency. I had a very precaurious job at the time and the master looked to me immediately fascinating. Space...I didn't know much about it at the time but I though it would be perfect challenge, to actually discover something new in a sector still very much linked with my background. I had nothing to loose anyways and I applied for the fellowship offered, driven more by my sense of curiosity rather then a clear career path. And guess what, I got the fellowship, I started the Master and thanks especially to the incredible lecturers, the visits and the activities we did, I felt immediately in love. All the experts we met would transmit this passion and enthusiasm for bulding a common better future and I wanted to be part of it!

Today, I have the great honour to be the secretary General of Eurisy. Let me first tell you some more about us, Eurisy was established in 1989 by the vision of Hubert Curien the then French Minister of Education and Science and chair of ESA, the ambition was to bridge the gap between space and society. Today the association counts 23 members among international organisations like ESA and EUSPA and national space agencies across europe and beyond. Now, our mission is to disseminate the use of space-based products and services so as to consolidate the benefits the space-derived innovation provides to society, economy and environment. With this goal in mind, EURISY’s role is to proactively support final user communities in making increasing use of satellite services. In a nutshell, Eurisy acts as a facilitator of innovation, a catalyser for collaboration, a match-maker for people and organisations with common interests in advancing innovation, and as an adviser to policy makers. My role as secretary general is the key strategic and operational management position, with a reporting line to the President. As SG I am responsible for leading the organisation in accordance with its Vision and Mission, through a defined strategy as approved by our governing bodies. I am thus in charge for the developement of the overall strategy and its implementation. I manage the network of our members and the external relations of the organisation as well some less cool activities such as budget definition.

I will ask first for forgiveness for the pun but...in space there is space for everybody, and I truly mean this. The space sector is expanding, especially in the downstream part of the value chain, those of applications and services and we do need more and more other professional profiles than only aerospace engineers. We want in the future to commercialise our services , we aim at making a better and wider use of GIS technologies, we want to combine satellite data with AI and machine learning to create a lods of new and more effective services and lawyers and communicators and much much more. So I invite all space entusiasths to access networks that promotes also non engeeniring space careers, like this one, to get to know all the possibilities offered by the sector.