From SEDSWiki

Report from Max Beaumont, Conference Manager, SEDS International Conference 2008 -

Introduction

SEDSIC 08 was held on the 28th of September in the Gala Room of the Scottish Exhibition + Conference Centre in Glasgow immediately preceding the IAC. The programme consisted of talks from students involved with SEDS Spain, Kuwait, India and UK as well as with other student projects such as the CubeSat projects SSETI and SEDSAT II. The conference also hosted Simon Feast of Reaction Engines Ltd. and ‘Bill Nye the Science Guy’ & Louis Friedman from The Planetary Society. Topics which were covered included the strengthening of the global SEDS network, various student activities and projects, Space and science public outreach, human Space exploration and orbital Space planes. 15-20 people attended and enjoyed a buffet lunch and an evening social at a very lively Japanese restaurant.
The quality of the presentations was very high. Jim Volp of SEDS Spain opened the conference with an inspiring talk on the potential of the global SEDS network and of all its individual members. This was followed by presentations from SEDS UK and SEDS Kuwait as well as a video from SEDS India. These covered the history, current activities and future plans of the SEDS branches. The people from SETTI and SEDSAT II gave great talks on the progress of their satellite projects. It was very inspiring to see how much they had achieved and the international collaboration that was undertaken to do so. Louis Friedman, who is Director of the The Planetary Society and who used to work at JPL and other high profile Space organisations, gave a thoughtful presentation on the issues surrounding human Space exploration and colonization. His colleague Bill Nye, Vice-President of The Planetary Society and an extremely successful television personality in the US, gave a hugely entertaining and insightful presentation on Space and science outreach. The day also included a short presentation from Max Beaumont on his work at ESA as a Young Graduate Trainee and was finished off by a presentation on the potential of the orbital Space plane Skylon which is being developed at Reaction Engines Ltd. with the help of the presenter Simon Feast. All in all, a fun and inspiring day which brought people together and which will hopefully lead to further collaboration between international SEDS branches and other student organizations!
All the people who were at the conference have a passion for Space. Through this passion, they participated in student projects, joined student organizations and in turn, found out about SEDSIC 08. Participating in such projects and organisations really exposes you to a world of like-minded people and gives you access to people, organisations and companies they would otherwise have no way of approaching. It is also a great way to learn more about how the Space industry works and who the key players really are. Let us hope that at SEDSIC 09 even more students will be involved and presenting even more ambitious student Space projects and activities.

The ESA Young Graduate Traineeship by Max Beaumont (YGT at ESTEC, June 08 – present)

The YGT programme offers recent graduates from ESA member states a unique opportunity to gain experience in the European Space industry. It places 120 graduates into real Space projects every year. It is a very competitive programme which also ends up providing the graduates with a lot of job opportunities by the end of the programme. Max is a systems engineer working on enabling technology for future human Space exploration and he will talk about the YGT programme and his experience on it so far.

SEDS International Conferences
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