In conversation with a space explorer: Creating the future in low Earth orbit

A fast changing world, driven by staggering breakthroughs and new fissures opening up. Can we make sense of patterns of change across the globe during this time of exponential technology?

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I recently had a chance to sit down with Anousheh Ansari, a serial entrepreneur and founder who was also the first Iranian astronaut in space and the first private female space explorer.

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In October 2018 Anousheh took over as CEO of the XPrize Foundation, a non-profit organisation which seeks to drive radical breakthroughs which will benefit humanity. In our conversation Anousheh and I discuss how her experience with space travel changed her perspective on the world, metaphorically as well as literally, why the XPrize's model of competition-driven innovation works, and what she hopes to achieve as the leader of XPrize.

How did your time in space change the way you think about the world?

Anousheh Ansari: The experience of being in space is really transformational, because it helps you see the world through a different lens. It helps you feel part of the bigger picture of humanity, not just part of one country or region. It helps you define your relationship with the world and with your priorities differently, and really, truly focus on humanity and what's important for our planet, our home, more than any time before.

I remember when I was in the Soyuz before we arrived to the Space Station and just the first moment that I was able to float up and look at our planet, see Earth from my window in the Soyuz. That sheer joy of seeing our home planet in space, even though I had seen a thousand pictures of it before, just being able to see it with my own eyes, and this sense of life and warmth and energy coming from it: it's hard to describe, but it was quite an emotional experience.

Coming back to Earth, I felt like I'd been awakened by this whole view that I had out of my Soyuz capsule, or out of the Space Station. I thought, "Everyone is sleepwalking." I wanted to shake them up and say: "Wake up. Look at this world. This is a beautiful world. Look at what we're doing to it. Look at how we're just fighting with other and missing the big picture." I felt that one of the things I should continue doing is to tell the story and continue to inspire others to go after their dreams and pursue things that may seem impossible, like going to space.

How does the XPrize's model drive innovation where it might not otherwise happen?

Anousheh Ansari: XPrize does something brilliantly, and that's looking at the big, challenging problems where there's a market failure in solving them, and asking "Can we find the right framing and right incentives to get people around the globe, the crowd, to come up with solutions to solve it?"

Usually our prizes are anywhere between 5 to 50 million, and run from a couple of years to maybe five or even ten years, so it's a long-term view. Our prizes run for a long time because we don't want this to just be a science project - we want this to be something that's feasible, scalable, something that can be deployed and achieve some impact. We don't award for just an idea - we only award when the solution is demonstrated.

We find problems where there is something that requires technological advancement or maybe just requires a new, innovative approach, a new business model. Whatever it is, for whatever reason, there's not the incentive in the market to invest the time and energy to solve it.

What do you plan to bring to your new role as CEO of the XPrize?

Anousheh Ansari: We don't have enough participation from young people, so I want to put a focus on how we can tap into that energy and innovation more. There are 1.4 billion young people out there with great ideas, who are highly engaged and are sick and tired of hearing about how we have basically ruined the world for them. They have ideas about how they can fix it; they just are not given the platform to do it. I'm hoping XPrize could be one of those platforms that allows them to demonstrate their creative juices, and show how they can find solutions to the problem we've created for them.

That's one part of what I hope we can do in the future. Another thing we haven't done enough of is to look at long-term impact and how we can make sure the solutions that come out of our competitions actually get implemented in the market, so we're looking at ways of expanding that impact curve into the future by the work we do at XPRIZE.

What do you think - can prizes like XPrize fill the gap and spur innovation where the market fails?

How should we provide a platform for the energies and talents of young people to flourish, and how can we translate brilliant ideas into lasting, meaningful impact?

There are many more brilliant insights from this conversation which you can listen to on iTunes, Spotify, Overcast, Breaker & Stitcher. #brilliantminds