Omnipresent connectivity is the future. And with emerging technologies, we're getting closer to unlocking the full potential of connectivity and data. But why is connectivity so crucial in this day and age? How do we revolutionize connectivity and data? And what role does space play in digital transformation?
In this episode of Data Point of View, host Laurie Hood welcomes Flavia Tata Nardini, the CEO of Fleet Space Technologies. They chat about space entrepreneurship, the importance of connectivity for humankind, and the challenges of running a space startup.
Omnipresent connectivity is the future. And with emerging technologies, we're getting closer to unlocking the full potential of connectivity and data. But why is connectivity so crucial in this day and age? How do we revolutionize connectivity and data? And what role does space play in digital transformation?
In this episode of Data Point of View, host Laurie Hood welcomes Flavia Tata Nardini, the CEO of Fleet Space Technologies. They chat about space entrepreneurship, the importance of connectivity for humankind, and the challenges of running a space startup.
D0E9EC4B_9 - Mobilewalla - Data Point of View - Flavia Tata Nardini
[00:00:00] Flavia Tata Nardini: There is an enabler that is missing, and that's why all these big industries that operate in the middle of nowhere, without connectivity, I believe that if you enable connectivity, you're going to enable them to gather data, understand what they're doing, change for the best and help humanity.
[00:00:38] Laurie Hood: Thank you for listening today. I'm Laurie Hood, CMO at Mobilewalla, and this is Data Point of View. Data Point of View is a podcast for anyone interested in using machine learning and consumer data to achieve business objectives. Joining me for this episode is Flavia Tata Nardini. Flavia's co-founder and CEO of Fleet Space Technologies. Fleet is an agile space company connecting the internet of things around the world,
[00:01:08] Laurie Hood: using a massive fleet of small, low-cost satellites. Prior to founding Fleet, Flavia has spent her career at a variety of space-related companies and government entities. Flavia, welcome to the program and thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:01:25] Flavia Tata Nardini: Thank you so much, Laurie, for having me.
[00:01:28] Laurie Hood: So, I'd like to start talking a bit about your background and the path that led to your current role. Then, it would be great to move on to Fleet and how you and your team are using data to drive change and then close the discussion, um, with, with your thoughts about the future of satellites and how you see them transforming our day to day lives.
[00:01:51] So, if that's okay with you, let's jump right in.
[00:01:54] Flavia Tata Nardini: Absolutely.
[00:01:56] Laurie Hood: So, I'm really excited to be able to do this podcast with you because you're a rocket scientist, a real live rocket scientist, and your career choices and, and your education have been very consistent with this interest and focus on space. So, let's start really by talking about your longtime interest with both your undergraduate and graduate degrees, being in a related
[00:02:23] Flavia Tata Nardini: Yeah.
[00:02:23] Laurie Hood: and kind of, sort of how did all of this come to pass?
[00:02:27] Flavia Tata Nardini: You're so right. And you know, you describe it very, very well. This is a long-lasting passion of mine. We started when I was younger and somehow I managed to keep it moving, you know, when everyone's, you see a lot of kids and a lot of younger children that love space and they want to be in space, but it's a passion that
[00:02:46] usually goes away, doesn't it? You know, when they turn 10 or 11 or even earlier, there is not a lot of rockets or space movies anymore. But, for me,
[00:02:56] it was really something that I care about, and I wanted to keep working on. It wasn't easy to understand what would be the path for me to enter into this.
[00:03:05] 'Cause it was a real, a real love, I have to say. It started with a lot of stars and a lot of tech and a lot of space and movies. It just kept growing. When I finished high school, I studied math, a lot of math, scientific's subjects at school, and I decided to go into aerospace engineering, a space engineering.
[00:03:25] I got a big family. We have five, and some of them are engineers, and they told me, you know, I should do engineers. I think I wanted to be an astronomer. I don't think I had any idea what was the difference whatsoever between being astronomer and engineer, but I studied aerospace engineering. And then space, mastering space and, and the love kept growing.
[00:03:46] The love for, first, airplanes, then rockets, then particular engines. So, the more I went through university, the more specialized in little rockets, and everything else went to space. Not sure, really, how I kept going, you know, I remember sometimes in the university, which was hard, the studies, did a lot of exams.
[00:04:08] Flavia Tata Nardini: Now, if I think about it, I'm like, "Wow." But, let's say it's a, you know, when I, when I graduate and I think I've always been a good student, a very diligent student, you know, a bit of a rebel student, type of girl, not really being at all the lessons and not really taking all the notes.
[00:04:26] But, efficient in, in a study, I guess. So, I
[00:04:28] Laurie Hood: yeah.
[00:04:29] Flavia Tata Nardini: with really good grades, like maximum grades. So, it turned out that I was good at studying.
[00:04:35] Laurie Hood: Well, very
[00:04:36] Flavia Tata Nardini: that's how I started.
[00:04:38] Laurie Hood: So, when you came out of university, talk about some of your early jobs because you, it, you bring sort of this entrepreneurial ship to the role, as well as the steep background in the field. So, talk about some of how kind of the early jobs you had shaped your career and sort of got you to this point.
[00:04:59] Flavia Tata Nardini: It is very interesting what you just said. 'Cause if I look back at my career and where I started working, there was not a lot of entrepreneurship where we related to it. It was really, I was just used to, "Hey, I'm going to find a job in organization and keep moving there." I moved to, from Italy to the Netherlands in my last year of school, worked at European Space Agency.
[00:05:19] And then, I found a job in the Netherlands in a big organization. That were all big organizations, you know, as a young engineer then, just simply doing engineer work, then becoming good at that and becoming an assistant engineer and becoming good at that and a project manager. So, I just kept going, you know, every year I was like, "Okay. And then you can do that."
[00:05:40] And I was, I was good. But I was still working in big corporate, working on advanced space technologies or advanced, like new ideas. I think that sometimes underestimate my exposure to that. When I started working at TNO in the Netherlands, I was in this group that was working in advance on concepts.
[00:06:01] So, the good things about it, that's a concept that we were sitting around the table and think, "What's next, who needs what and why?" And I was also one of the most talented person in the company, I guess. I was in all these leadership courses, probably underestimate everything that I've learned there.
[00:06:19] And I was working on this mass mission, was, was amazing for a little girl, for a young girl. But, now that you made me reflect on it, I think that explo, exposure to a lot of advanced technologies and not simply doing what we were supposed to do, but thinking about a future, it kind of initiated kind of thinking, thinking mind, in me
[00:06:40] about, "Hey, if we had to build something from scratch to change the world, or what would that be?" And I actually experienced something interesting those years, the frustration and not be able to bring a project to completion when you're working at big company, you know, you come out with this amazing futuristic ideas.
[00:06:57] Maybe you get some money to do them, but they did just, just die there, and most of them, no one pushed them through. And, yeah,
[00:07:08] I think it's, for me, it's a good reflection point because it created a little bit of thinking in me and say, "What if? What if we could bring all these concepts to change the world, really? How that will look like?"
[00:07:20] So, um, that's what's my exercise up to 28 years old.
[00:07:24] interesting talking about, know, the opportunity to really see sort of all of these possibilities, but you had said frustration around working at a big company, not really creating products, you know, being able to complete projects.
[00:07:41] Laurie Hood: let's sort of switch gears a little bit and talk about Fleet, how you came up with that idea and how does it feel what you see as this existing market need?
[00:07:53] Flavia Tata Nardini: So, I, after this career that we discussed, I moved to Australia, that it was a big personal jump. So, it was not really driven by, by work. That job, it was the initiation of building a startup because I really wanted to keep working in space. I think, at this point in time, you understand it was my passion.
[00:08:14] So, I didn't want to stop. But Australia, at the time, that was probably nine years ago, didn't have a Space Agency. There were not a lot of companies working in space. So, probably entrepreneurship was the only way. I was a bit stuck in a corner, not a choice, really, came to me with the idea of, of, you know, keep working in space, keep doing what I was trying to do.
[00:08:36] That was a fantastic opportunity. When my co-founder told me we're going to be, we can be the startup in space because I would like to work in space. It was a, it is serial entrepreneur, and started his career with software entrepreneurship, um. And he said, you know, if we, if we bring our minds together, we can make this happen.
[00:08:56] For, at beginning, I just saw it as an opportunity to keep working in space, but then, suddenly, I realized there was an opportunity to make one of those big change happen. One of those big change that I've always been exposed to without bringing into life. When you love a topic, finding, you know, like space, it is, it is a weird way of tackle entrepreneurship.
[00:09:18] 'Cause some people tackle entrepreneurship because they see a problem. And most of the time that's really brilliant because they see a problem and they want to fix it. What I could see as an opportunity, I could see space is changing, space is incredible.
[00:09:30] In the past 10 years we have seen, that time I was able to see the barrier to entry into space going down. Entrepreneurs building companies that were not government, technologies allowing you to be small satellites to change businesses on Earth.
[00:09:48] So, I saw an opportunity, and I was discussing with Matt, my co-founder, and telling him, "Hey, surely we are at the beginning of something being in the space industry. I love space. You love space. We can find business model that makes sense." 'Cause this most satellites, that was my passion, I, w, w, they were really, and they are really changing how we use space technologies.
[00:10:11] So, we, we started looking into a topic. We started looking into what people need. What is the big problem? Australia is a big country. Incredible and beautiful, but gave us exposure to the lack of connectivity. It gave us exposure to what it means that, you know, just 2% of a continent is actually connected to any form of internet.
[00:10:33] And the rest is unconnected. It was probably the best place to build a connectivity company, really. 'Cause we realized, you know, we really realized that we're industry's changing and the industry would be growth, you know, mining industries, energy industries, sort of farms, hydro companies in the middle of nowhere because this is where our critical infrastructures are. Integral on growth needed to grow.
[00:11:01] Needed to develop, needed to implement and AI and all these amazing technologies, automate, really, without connectivity and, you know, connectivity is, is, it's the soul of growth, not just for human kinds, but also for industries. You know, if you look at all the industrial revolution, last one us the computers, and the computers have changed the way we work and operate.
[00:11:28] So, that exposure to this lack of connectivity, I think it was important for us to understand that satellites are big,
[00:11:37] Laurie Hood: Um,
[00:11:38] Flavia Tata Nardini: expensive, and they cost a thousand dollars per megabytes to connect. So, they're really service for an elite in the world, just for the people that can pay for. So, it's not,
[00:11:50] Laurie Hood: Okay.
[00:11:51] Flavia Tata Nardini: yet technologies for everyone.
[00:11:53] And this is what every entrepreneur realized, "Can we bring a very complex technology to everyone? Can we bring the supercomputer?" It's when I found that everyone is. That's a thing; it's super fascinating where you can give access to data, to information to everyone, not just to the big government or the big companies that can pay for.
[00:12:12] So, we decided, you know, that that was our goal.
[00:12:16] Laurie Hood: Oh, so, you've really figured out a way to kind of, I'm going to say, make this scale, but scale much more broadly and, and on this bring it to the masses. I mean, you've said two great things that are so quotable, which, you know, connectivity is, is the soul of growth and, and you are so passionate and then, you know, seeing an opportunity, not just problems.
[00:12:42] So, just, just great conversation. Talk a bit, if you can, around how kind of and artificial intelligence and
[00:12:52] Flavia Tata Nardini: Okay.
[00:12:53] Laurie Hood: of these things come into play with just the complexity of what you're doing and how you're implementing it.
[00:12:59] Flavia Tata Nardini: Exactly. So, if you think about a satellite constellation, right? That's what we're building. So, an infrastructure in space.
[00:13:07] It, is a, it can't be just a data pipe. So, you know, bringing in that information for one point to the other, going through space. And that's, that's the basic, right? Can you have that infrastructure that allows you to connect at a reasonable cost and globally?
[00:13:24] Because at the end of the day towers and telco, telcos, they cover, you know, they cover 2% on Earth, 90% of Earth, it's disconnected. So, it cannot make sense that 90% of the rest of the world needs this data pipeline to send that out from one point to the other. Right? So, the basic idea was, "Can we create an infrastructure that is lower cost?" Because of several, several changing technologies, you know, you can be smaller satellites, you can 3D print satellites. You can have amazing technologies that allows you to have small satellites and everywhere around Earth, kind of a, you know, not a, as always say not a big bird, but a lot of bees, you know? They, they create all this infrastructure in the sky.
[00:14:07] So, once you have this infrastructure in the sky, a constellation of satellites around Earth is really 500 kilometers far from, from, from the surface. Okay.
[00:14:17] So, you can send data from one point to the other, for sure. But, how complex data? So, let's go back to this kind of customers that we're talking about.
[00:14:26] We're talking about money. These customers, in the past five years, they've been under a lot of pressure to monitor and understand the way they operate. We are going through a massive revolution in our industry. Now, driven by renewable energy is, driven by Evy, all these incredible technologies.
[00:14:51] You know, all underpinned by climate change. It is unfortunately and actually fortunately and kind of vulnerable now that we need to fix Earth. It is not an easy place to be, but the awareness is much higher, and for me, it was always, "Okay. We now have these heavy industries that are the base of our, of our humankind, you know, give us water or give us material. Think about the mining industry
[00:15:17] that is a very, it's always an industry under a lot of spotlight because surely is one of the industries, I didn't say is not like was intentive to save our planet. Now, they actually have to, have to keep humanity critical minerals like copper, lithium, cobalt, and so forth to help us transition into the energy future.
[00:15:40] So, how, how weird is that? So, one of the industry that caused the most of the problem, now they need to change the way they operate to actually help. So, all of these industries are under a lot of transformation. And for them, transformation is driven by data. "Okay. I need to have more critical resources. I need to find more copper-molybdenum.
[00:16:02] Okay. I need to create a solar farm, or I need to move energies from one part on the other." And all this infrastructure has always been in the middle of nowhere. So, zero connectivity, zero that awareness. So, they've always been operating simply with people in a car and, you know, connect the pole from point A to point B and just operate in a really not, in an old way.
[00:16:26] We'd done understanding the impact of what they do without optimizing, and they are now under a lot of pressure to show that what they do is good for Earth, is good for humankind growth, and they need data. They need to understand, "
[00:16:43] Laurie Hood: Okay.
[00:16:44] Flavia Tata Nardini: We are looking for critical minerals. Where are they? How are we going to get them without drilling Earth? Okay. We need to have more efficiency of solar panels. How does that work?"
[00:16:56] You know, like, because their insight in data has always been very lacking. So, I love this moment, which you got, I mean, love and not love it, I'm not happy that we got to a point in which climate change is so big that we need to make a change, but I'm happy to be part of the change, you know?
[00:17:15] So, there is this push to change the way industry operates and is data-driven. Of course, that will lead to change machineries and infrastructure to be, to be more friendly with environment, but that change is driven by knowing what problems are they causing.
[00:17:33] Okay, we're talking about carbon footprint, how do you do that? You measure it. How do you measure with data, with devices, with sensors, with analytics? How can you have this data if you lack connectivity? So, you know, there is, there is an enabler that is missing, and that's why
[00:17:51] all these big industries that operate in the middle of nowhere, without connectivity, I believe that if you enable connectivity, you're going to enable them to gather data, understand what they're doing, change for the best and help humanity.
[00:18:05] Laurie Hood: So, this is, this is in my brain, how this works. So, you're, so, you're providing the technology that same as democratizing the access to this because you're able to do it at a lower cost. You're able to bring it to of these different industries, again, who've been operating in a somewhat disconnected way, but I'm sure they're able to collect this data, but you're the one who helps them move it from point A to point B.
[00:18:35] Flavia Tata Nardini: And we're trying to push it even further. So, we are trying not just to provide the pipe to move it to A to B, but also give the chance to create the analytics, in the platform. So, using space, not just as a pipe, but as a platform of data analytics that I think is the next level is the internet in the sky.
[00:18:56] Right? So That's a, that's what we are trying to do. A lot of people say, you know, the cloud is the cloud, but really the cloud is not in the sky, even if it's got his cloud beautiful name, but satellites are really out there. So, it's not just moving data to point A to point B, we're pushing even further. Can we give analytics, can we give, you know, we believe in edge computing?
[00:19:18] So, edge computing is the capability of in the, you know, if you gather sensors data in the field, processes that are there, processes that are in the satellites. So, when it actually gets to the end-user is not a stream of information, but it's an action. So, you know, this money drain system give you action.
[00:19:38] So, you know, this, this month, we have just announced our service called ExoSphere, ExoSphere is an end-to-end service for the mining exploration industry to actually map Earth, on the ground, up to 1.4 kilometers on the ground to look for critical minerals. And, and for us was a way to use satellite, in a weird way, you know, from the stars to look underneath ground so that mining companies can find critical minerals without having to drill everywhere.
[00:20:11] Okay. And with this service also provides analytics. So, in the pipe, we have analytics, so we got machine learning and AI because we are looking at Earth from the top, but this is a lot of data. So, in this infrastructure, and this is the fascinating things and infrastructure of the future, not just point A to point B. Infrastructure of the future is software.
[00:20:35] So, even if I launch satellites, you know, if, probably 70% of my engineers are software people, the people will not think, you know, that would say that my, I sort of a hardware launches satellites, but what we wanted to do is create an infrastructure that is not simply a tower with, you know, with an antenna, but it's smart.
[00:20:57] So, can email the right data. So...
[00:20:59] Laurie Hood: It's a lot going on.
[00:21:00] Flavia Tata Nardini: Yeah.
[00:21:01] Laurie Hood: So, talk about, I mean, this is incredibly ambitious and transformational, started a company to do it. Talk about some of the challenges that you've, you've had along this path and, and what are some of the things you've overcome.
[00:21:17] Flavia Tata Nardini: So, well, long list of challenges, but, you know, let, let's focus on one that's interesting one. At the beginning, we thought and it was a challenge to be in the company like this, outside Silicon Valley. You know, if you look in the past 15 years, there's been an enormous amount of investment in space startup, in the Valley.
[00:21:38] First and all, Elon. But if, despite the great growth of Elon, there are a lot of other startups that had done really, really well. But, if you look at it, the, the success of the startup was be like exits, IPLS, packs. It's just been happening in the past couple of years. So, it took slightly longer than a software startup.
[00:21:58] So, space is not as easy as software. You still have to go on a rocket. So, we have seen investment in the Valley, actually Evyreturns just now. So, you can imagine, you know, how new these fields, right?
[00:22:15] Laurie Hood: Yes.
[00:22:15] Flavia Tata Nardini: And if you are in Australia, so on the other side of the planet, I need to access that, you know, incredible amount of, of capital because bear in mind, it's hard to bootstrap our space company.
[00:22:26] Like, bootstrap a space company, it's really hard, you know, so you need to count and VC money and capital and support.
[00:22:34] So every, every startup in the world struggle or has challenge into capital raise. My, my partner in, my business partner always make this joke in which he says, you know, "I was, I, I, I, I competed, I led this software startup, it was really, really hard."
[00:22:51] And I'm like, "How hard can it be to raise money for space startup?" Turns out to be really hard, you know? 'Cause he's lower. But, so that was the first challenge. You need to convince the market in Australia, in the US, no matter what that to be patient with you in the process, in their past, in the neck, in the city first five years to demonstrate that you can do this. And the way we approached it, I think, was really good. It was really step-by-step to try to create NVP. So, NVP is a concept in the software industry, you know, you launch a better software and NVP and it's not perfect. Now, you try to do that in space, you know, you're not just satellites, doesn't have to be perfect.
[00:23:33] Now, we launched the other one, doesn't have to be perfect. So, you go through this long process just to learn, and if you got it right, investors, they understand. So, historically, if you want to build a constellation of satellites, you know, you raised $200 million or $500 million, you launch it, then you go bankrupt, you know, and then you try to sell it.
[00:23:53] You go bankrupt again. That is a very, very disturbing process, in a sense. So, we wanted to disrupt that. So, we launched satellites that are not prefect but we learned and we keep moving. So, that was the...
[00:24:05] Laurie Hood: Unless like agile, I mean, it's really that sort of agile, bringing agile software.
[00:24:11] Flavia Tata Nardini: That is hard, to bring it into space, you know, because you like, you raised 5 million on a couple satellites. Are they fully functional connecting every customers around the world? No. But they give you enough information to move to the next generation, next generation. So, we have launched six satellites.
[00:24:25] It's going to be 12, 10, or 12, at the end of this year. And now, in year six of this company, we are going to start mass manufacturing them and launch near 50 a year. It took time, but we are here.
[00:24:39] Yeah, but still.
[00:24:41] And that was the first challenge, you know. And that really helps you with the second challenge. How can you get to revenue with a space startup
[00:24:47] without having to wait six years? And that really helped by doing things in steps and being very close to our potential customers. Like, I'm talking a lot about mining. That is the main, the main industry in Australia and around the world, but all HQ are here. So, being based in a hugely not disconnected place with a lot of customers helped.
[00:25:11] Um, the other challenge, I think, are not less or more complex, they have startup owners, you know, it's growth, it's hiring, is, it's, it's people. The big challenge also that, that it was created it's been an ecosystem that is push by an amazing leader that is Elon, that is absolutely an incredible entrepreneur.
[00:25:36] And also, so, it's bringing the ecosystem within, but also really the us, it's got heavy presence in the ecosystem, right? So, you need to build a business that is, it sits around or is different for what is building. 'Cause, you know, when we started this company, I'm like, "It's not that I don't want to compete, compete with Elon,
[00:25:58] I'm okay with that. But, you know, if there's something that we can do that he cannot do or he will not do because of technologies. That's where I want to be."
[00:26:08] Laurie Hood: Yeah, definitely.
[00:26:10] Flavia Tata Nardini: around Amazon or, you know, so that's the complexity of having an incredible leader that attracts most of the capital.
[00:26:19] So, how do you actually be as something very smart that makes a lot of money in such a, in such an ecosystem? It's a challenge.
[00:26:28] Laurie Hood: Well, and he brings, he brings a lot of attention, which,
[00:26:33] Flavia Tata Nardini: it's
[00:26:33] Laurie Hood: you know, there's that adage, any PR is good PR. So, it certainly, probably provides a lot of lift
[00:26:41] Flavia Tata Nardini: So much.
[00:26:42] Laurie Hood: and he's shown what you can do. So that
[00:26:44] Flavia Tata Nardini: Inspiring.
[00:26:45] Laurie Hood: makes a lot of this other innovation plausible. Now, I know that you've opened your coming to the United States, and you're going to be opening an office in Houston.
[00:26:57] So, how did you decide Houston versus Silicon valley?
[00:27:01] Flavia Tata Nardini: We, we actually do have salespeople in both of the states, and we love more Houston. My thinking process was always trying to get an office that is closer to your customers. And if you think about critical infrastructure and having industry, it's a lot in taxes, you know, is so, but we, we, we are very flexible lately.
[00:27:25] So, we hire, you know, even before COVID, people worked from home, everywhere, and now we've got people in Canada. You know, Houston, it's nice there, customers are there, it's beautiful.
[00:27:37] Laurie Hood: Yeah, no.
[00:27:39] Flavia Tata Nardini: Yeah.
[00:27:39] Laurie Hood: That's fantastic. So, so, before we close and as we were preparing for this call, you know, you, you and, again, this is the most quotable pot, you've got more good things you have said in this podcast, I think, than all my other ones combined, but use the terminology around, you know, bringing the conversation down-to-earth.
[00:28:03] And, you know, I can remember a time where it was, it was bold to say that telephone numbers would be associated with people, not places with, like, the advent of, of mobile phones. And when you talk about, you know, what you're doing and sort of bringing the internet into the sky, you know, give us, give us some insight on, on the things you see happening, you know, over the next, I don't know, 2, 3, 5, 10 years.
[00:28:34] And how, how you really see what you're doing being, being transformational kind of for just everyday life.
[00:28:41] Flavia Tata Nardini: Yep. This phase where we are in is, of course, serving
[00:28:47] industrial IoT that it is, it is massive, and it's an industrial transformation, but doesn't patch yet every single person and or a child, you know, that starts in, in, in, in, in, in, in an indirect way. But, what I do believe, and then we already had this conversation before, and I tell everyone is that because of this change in access and availability of space technology, I think every operator and every person in this world that is currently working on
[00:29:18] internet from space, then you not lot, but yeah.
[00:29:24] you can count them probably to ends. We have a responsibility to understand, in the next 10 years can have a major impact on everyone. So, my dream is really, look at, look at this, looking at the iPhone or a phone or whatever it is. I think if I ask you, what's the biggest limitation of your phone, really?
[00:29:43] You can do everything with this nowadays. You can do everything. But, if you're a person that travels, if a person had traveled a lot or go hiking or whatever it is, you know, we all know that cane five cheat towers covers 2% of our planet. 2% of our planet.
[00:30:03] Laurie Hood: Just not much. Yeah.
[00:30:04] Flavia Tata Nardini: That is not much, you know, so, really, I hope that this all operators that are working internet from space, starting industrial IoT, starting with broadband or starting whatever they want to start.
[00:30:16] We all have the goal that in 10 years, I really hope less than that. I'm going to have an iPhone. I think it's, it's happening already, in the next, in the coming years. That connects with space, connect to 5G, 4G, 6G when I am in a, in a, in an environment where this is available, and that connects automatically to space when I'm not in 4G, 5G area. That's what we're working on.
[00:30:40] This is what we're working on, all of us, and this is going to be transformative, you know? 'Cause I think we do not understand what we'll, first for safety of humankind never really be a connectivity in every side of the world. How I'm, I a travel a lot, you know, and, and I like to visit places, and I like to go. I live in Adelaide in Australia.
[00:31:04] If we travel one a half hours outside the city, um, it's done. I'm off-grid.
[00:31:10] Laurie Hood: Yeah.
[00:31:11] Flavia Tata Nardini: And you know, and it's these difficult thoughts because I like being off-grid, you know, it's not that I don't like being off-grid. I think off-grid is incredible for humans, you know, we all love it. We all love
[00:31:24] Laurie Hood: Yeah.
[00:31:24] Flavia Tata Nardini: going to beach house or that mountain house where there is not connectivity.
[00:31:28] And the first 24 hours is very stressful, but suddenly, you're like,
[00:31:31] Laurie Hood: Yeah.
[00:31:32] Flavia Tata Nardini: "Love my life." Yeah, So, is there's really.
[00:31:34] Laurie Hood: Just relax.
[00:31:35] Just rest. So, weird balance between not having connectivity some time, but also what's the opportunity for the rest of the world if we all have connectivity everywhere we are. I mean, we can always be diligent on how we use connectivity.
[00:31:50] We can always switch off the phone if we go to beach house. I really hope that the universe can help us and up all these operators to allow phones to talk to space everywhere we are in the world.
[00:32:04] Laurie Hood: Yep, well, and it does, it brings, it was, it was, again, with the advent of mobile phone technology, places that couldn't have landlines all of a sudden had cell towers, but there are still places that don't have access to cell towers
[00:32:18] and,
[00:32:18] and, and that connectivity is, is, it just sort of the soul of people connecting and being able to be connected.
[00:32:30] So, I think it's a cool thing. This was just this, I mean, this was just so exciting and such a treat to be able to talk to you, and, you know, I want to thank you for joining us, sharing your insights, sharing all your great, great kind of quotable terms and the interesting things that you're working on because what you're doing will be truly transformational.
[00:32:52] And I think people will listen to this in a couple of years from now go, "Oh, that, that's, that's what she was talking about. This, this is really happening." So, it's really, really exciting. And again, I want to thank you again for joining us. To our listeners, I want to thank you for your time today, and please join us for another episode of Data Point of View brought to you by Mobilewalla. Thanks again, have a great day.