Rosalia Gitau, CEO and Founder, Bixie, PTE LTD (Singapore)
I recently attended a space conference in Bangkok, Thailand. Hundreds of booths were set up in a chilly hall, showcasing feats of engineering, depths of curiosity, and the type of ingenuity that makes one believe that maybe the human race will be alright after all.
On the main stage, a company was showcasing its satellite technology to a rapt audience, explaining how its size and features would one day enable selfies from the moon. Okay, perhaps we won’t be alright after all.
During the Q&A, a young woman stood up and asked something to the effect of ‘but what is this actually for?’ I mean, fair enough. With everything that is happening here on earth–natural disasters, poverty, war–how is space exploration in Thailand–or anywhere else in the world for that matter–going to help our burning, flooding, inflation-ridden planet?
Digital Humanism
Digital humanism aims to put human wellbeing and quality of life at the centre of technological development. It’s a commitment by innovators, business and government to create, regulate and develop technology for the betterment of humankind. This means both seizing the opportunities which advanced digital technology offers to serve humankind and ensuring that those benefits are available to all. In other words, we must be able to answer the question posed by that young woman standing in the chilly convention hall: How will sending rockets into space help her and others like her to solve urgent issues here on earth?
The space economy
Every year, at least $100Billion dollars is spent on space. And this number stands to grow nearly 10x by 2035, as private companies and governments jockey for space. And let’s not even talk about the externalities of space exploration such as the impact to the environment, the carbon emissions, the waste that it takes to defy gravity and pummel our way past our atmosphere at Max-Q. It begs the question, what is this all for?
The World Economic Forum issued a report1 last year that the space industry is set to TREBLE in value over the next 10 years and by 2035, the industry will be worth $1.8 Trillion dollars. As it turns out, this is the almost the exact same amount of money that would be gained if women were financially included right here on earth, according to a report which the WEF2 also wrote just one year prior. The 2023 report, underlined that by providing financing to women entrepreneurs – from micro to Series D – such access would generate $1.7 Trillion dollars and that this money was just sitting on the table due largely to access issues.
You see, a lot of people on earth are hard to reach. A lot of them are women. And a lot of these women don’t even have access to the internet. Here are the facts:
- At a time when we are able to conduct science experiments aboard a floating space station 400km above us, right here on earth, 30% of the population does not have access to the internet. No selfies for them.
- At a time when we are able to catch a 1,000 ton rocket hurtling back to earth with ‘chopsticks’, over 2 billion people – most of them women – don’t have a bank account.
To say it is the best of times and it is the worst of times is an understatement.
But the twain shall meet and did meet in that chilly hall in Bangkok, where a young woman inquired, rather astutely, ‘who is all this space technology for? How is it going to help her – and billions of women like her – right here on planet earth?
On a remote Pacific island, a fish seller is texting her catchers inquiring about weather conditions and their estimated catch for the day. She does the mental math, tabulating how much money she’ll bring in for the day, then she texts her youngest daughter to go ahead and get the new soccer cleats that she needs for practice.
A decade ago this would have been unthinkable: the Pacific was an internet blackout zone and satellite internet cost USD$4-7 per minute. But today, this is the reality for over 70 million people in the world, at least 51% of them being women. They are harnessing space to advance their position right here on planet earth and the economy of scale of satellite technology will only make this more and more affordable and prevalent.
Diminishing costs of satellite connectivity
Just last year, over 2,500 satellites were flown into space with over 8,000 satellites floating around our planet every single day. Myriad challenges have arisen from this Space Race 2.0 (Source: PBS3), but the opportunities are worth trillions and will improve the lives of billions.
So why aren’t Space and Finance folks getting together and capturing a once in a millennium opportunity?
- They’re often not in the same room: with the exception of some elbow rubbing at Davos, rocket scientists and fintech evangelists are seldom in the same room;
- Inflection Points: satellite technology needs to drive down the costs, while fintech products (especially micro products) need to drive up their reach. Both industries need to prioritize reaching economies of scale by acquiring unreached customers on planet earth; and
- Path Dependence: describes where past events or decisions constrain later events or decisions. Finance and space are just used to not considering women’s financial inclusion so they just continue to not do so, despite the fact that in the next five years, women will hold 60% of all the planet’s assets in the ‘great wealth transfer’(Source: Forbes4).
Elbowing in
A lot of very interesting progress is being made to address these challenges. At that same Bangkok conference, one enterprising local Bank showcased retail index funds tied to space companies, for sale at affordable prices – an opportunity for everyday women to reap the 9% year-on-year estimated returns of the Space Industry in the next 10 years (WEF5). Moreover, there are myriad global conferences where enterprising fintechs can slot in, including the upcoming International Aeronautical Congress6 in Sydney, Australia in July 2025.
Furthermore, the inflection point to realize space and fintech economies of scale to underserved women needs government advocacy, notably to ensure this target market is prioritized. This is in the interest of not only the public good but for the space companies themselves who must present the public with sound justifications for the use of hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds as subsidies needed to continue space exploration.
Lastly, path dependence is remedied by the culture moving in a new direction. Simply put: we need stories showing how lives here on earth are being revolutionized everyday by space. How a daughter’s football achievements are raised thanks to satellite providers in the Pacific. How the ISS is not just a $3 billion dollar budget line, but a laboratory testing osteoporosis cures for women in a much-needed gravity-free environment. How every single bank transfer, card payment, and debit swipe is powered by satellite enabled technology. In the words of Yuval Noah Hariri, “Stories are the Greatest Human Invention”. So let’s reshape the narrative and tell the story of how space has improved the lives of billions unconnected and financially excluded women right here on earth– and made a couple of trillion dollars in the process.
- https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/04/ space-economy-technology-invest-rocket-opportunity/ ↩︎
- https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/10/ women-entrepreneurs-finance-banking/ ↩︎
- https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-a-new- space-race-could-be-harming-the-earths-atmosphere ↩︎
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/aprilrudin/2024/11/12/women- run-the-world-how-to-tap-into-the-rising-power-of-womens-wealth/ ↩︎
- https://www.weforum.org/stories/2024/04/ space-economy-technology-invest-rocket-opportunity/ ↩︎
- https://www.iac2025.org/ ↩︎
ROSALIA GITAU
Rosalia Gitau, Esq. is a FinTech Executive, Attorney, Author, and Humanitarian. She is the co-founder and CEO of Bixie, an award-winning Financial Technology company for women recognized as a Top FinTech company by The Manila Times, The Manila Bulletin, 1Million Startups, the Financial Alliance for Women, and Women’s World Banking ( Bixie Press Pack available here).
Rosalia has over 15 years of international law, diplomacy and finance in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas with the United Nations, Alibaba, Shearman & Sterling, LLP, and the governments of the USA, Liberia and Sierra Leone. She is a PEN Award nominee and the co-founder of the Humanitarian Women’s Network, the largest global network of women in international affairs.
Rosalia is a Visiting Fellow at Zinc Venture Capital, a United Nations University and Brookings Institution scholar and sits on the Boards of HWN, and the Global Women’s Telecom Network. She holds a BA from UCLA, an MSc from the London School of Economics and J.D. from New York University School of Law. Rosalia is a world-record holding mountaineer, marathoner, and sailor, living her best life in Thailand with her husband, daughters and labradors. She hails from the Philippines and Kenya, by way of California.
