SGAC Announces the Winner of the 2019 TruSat Scholarship
SGAC is pleased to announce Ahmed Abdi as the winner of the 2019 TruSat Scholarship. The winner will be sponsored to attend the 3rd African Space Generation Workshop (AF-SGW) on the 30th November – 1st December 2019 to be held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
This award will be used towards covering expenses incurred to attend AF-SGW in Ethiopia, where the winner will take place in the two-day regional event that will bring together students, young professionals and experts from academia, space agencies and industry. We congratulate our winners and hope they will have a great time in Addis Ababa!
TruSat.org is a citizen-powered, open-source system for creating a globally-accessible, trusted record of satellite orbital positions. It is primarily designed to enable the assessment of satellite operations in the context of space sustainabilitiy standards.
Ahmed Abdi
Ahmed is the founder and programme manager of Africa Space Workshops as well as the current African Regional Partnerships Manager of the SGAC. Since I had the chance, blessings and luck to study space at a university level, I felt like this space knowledge I gained, combined with my life experiences as a former refugee who fled a civil war I had, it was necessary for me to pass it and educate others. Particularly, in Africa, as I could imagine how space technologies could benefit the lives of many on Africans. In 2018 I founded Africa Space Workshops, set up a team and organised Africa Space Workshops in Alexandria, Egypt. Summer 2019 I went to back to Somalia (my country of origin I fled) for three and half months to educate fellow Somalis about the benefits of space exploration to humanity. Young Somalis all over the country were really inspired as I had speakers from NASA, ESA, SGAC and others calling us virtually. I promised myself to organise a big space event in a different African country each year, democratise access to space, encourage space entrepreneurship and African space startups since that is what I am passionate about.
“I am very much honoured and grateful to be awarded the SGAC TruSat Scholarship. My participation to the AF-SGW will be a unique opportunity to not only exchange ideas and meet new people but also help advance space activities in the African continent and promoting inclusiveness by involving African youth.”