now for some more out of this world news to encourage and
inspire young women to pursue careers in Steam or Science Technology,
Engineering Arts and math.
Space V. I. P. Has officially launched their new york Space Prize challenge.
This is awesome.
For decades.
The space industry has been male dominated,
which has led at times to discrimination
towards both women and minorities.
In fact, less than 12.5% of people who have ever traveled to space
have been women.
This challenge hopes to help fix that
young women enrolled in the public school system
within new york's five boroughs and are between the ages of 15 to 18.
Are welcome to participate,
join us now to discuss much more about this Executive Director of Space Prize kim,
Macharia kim, Welcome to the show.
Really good to have you here and congratulations about this.
These are the types of stories we love to do on the show.
And uh you you really are doing something special here.
First talk to me more about your own personal
journey into launching a career into the space industry.
If you're willing to talk to tell me about that and
really why focus so much on growing the space economy itself.
Yeah, I've been working in the space industry for about four years now.
And funny enough,
my entry point into the industry came from a script that I
wrote back in college about a musical comedy about two women competing for
a free trip to space and that inspired me to dive into
the industry because I learned throughout my research for that specific project,
just how incredibly difficult it can be for women,
for folks who come from,
countries that aren't truly spacefaring nations to actually
engage in the exciting field of space.
And I've been working to basically democratize and diversify the space industry
ever since.
And this project has been such a thrilling experience
to work on because it touches my heart so deeply
we are really trying to make an impact on
young women around the world with what we're doing.
And we want to increase, not just opportunities for young women,
but also knowledge about what's out there and
what opportunities are available in the space industry.
So we're focusing a lot on space education,
as well as space literacy with space price.
Okay,
I'm I'm gonna take it just the slightest step backward.
I want to make sure that I understood this correctly. You wrote a feature film script
about women trying to go to space and that experience of you writing,
I believe you said a musical comedy script, if I'm not mistaken,
launched you to discover this deeply ingrained passion
to now be a global force for good for this fight that you have.
Did I get the basic details of your awesome background correct? Because
of all the things I thought you'd answer. That was not the answer.
I expected you to say that's incredible kim.
Yeah,
it's it's definitely things have come full circle quite quickly
and it's been just an absolute pleasure to be able
to bring to life something that was just in my
head and the opportunity came up very uh coincidentally,
there's a gentleman by the name of roman,
cheap maruca who runs an amazing concierge business with his wife
and one of his clients actually partnered with roman to launch this initiative.
And they brought me on after they've already kind
of drawn out to the initial planning for it.
And the second I got the phone call about this opportunity, I was like, oh my gosh,
you guys don't understand how perfect this is.
Yeah, you still got your script by the way.
Yeah. Okay, good.
I was gonna say, even if it hasn't been made kim,
you're gonna hold on to it because one day it will, I just have a sense about you.
It's it's it's gonna be like,
this is the thing that started it all and you'll get it made.
Um okay,
give us your sense for our viewers that are watching this interview and it
may not have as much of the background of understanding as you do,
kim
what are a lot of those barriers to entry,
those challenges for women looking to pursue careers in steam.
I think it's more of not, it's nothing related to the technical aspect, honestly,
the space for tons of women who are in college
and universities around the globe studying technical technical things.
However, it's more of a cultural, there's a cultural problem. I think
right now, space can sometimes seem to many people like a BRos club.
And because of that, I think most people feel
disillusioned about the opportunities that are out there for them and whether or
not there's a space for them that they not only thrive professionally,
but be happy with the people who are in who we work with and all of that.
So,
I think it's more of a cultural issue there
and I think that what we're doing is going to
really shift people's perspective as to what a what a
career and opportunities are in space could be like.
So we really hope to
shift people's understanding and help people realize that there
is there are opportunities for women in the space
industry and the culture of the space industry is
changing and becoming a lot more welcoming and inclusive.
So let's talk about this challenge a bit more.
I briefly,
as I introduced you talked about a few of the qualifications for those
that are interested in and what they need to do to qualify.
But talk to me a bit more about who is eligible
and how they can go about here in new york city,
learning more kim.
Yeah, so we actually, me and my colleague Mark Wagner,
we just visited a few schools that are participating in this challenge.
So unfortunately it's not open to all new york city students.
It's open to students who are at one or five schools, one in each borough.
Uh we have actually spent some time visiting them today,
Got to meet some of the students who have applied and when I tell you I have just been,
I've been blown away by the brilliant work that
these students are doing at such a young age and
knowing that we have the chance to this competition
to give them access to these astronaut related experiences.
The primary one being
zero G flight, but they're going to go on in May five winners. It's gonna be insane.
They even get to write a helicopter from new york to
go to where the the flight will be taking place.
Not only that,
the winners of this contest also get mentorship by a
leading figure in the space industry for one year.
We have people like
ginger Kerrick who was the first, you know,
hispanic flight director at Nasa onboard and tons of other women
who are gonna be judging the contest because it's an essay contest
and we are just so excited to be able to bring
together such a powerhouse collective of women to uplift the next generation
and speaking of that next generation,
any sense here on the timing with regards to
when winners will be announced or maybe announced?
I said, I think he said the flight there was was due for for May or so.
Um and really is that your hope there to be able to continue to do this uh annually.
Yeah, we do hope to do it more often.
But on a grander scale we're actually launching a global contest in june
we'll be sending to young women from around the world to space.
Wow, okay,
kim Macharia, you're welcome back on the show anytime anytime.
Like honestly, you just, you tell, tell me, tell our team, hey,
I want to come shoot the breeze with JD with some really cool updates.
This amazing thing that I do
kim, you're welcome back,
Congratulations to you and your colleagues for doing this.
This is what it's all about.
Kim Macharia is Executive Director of Space Prize, an awesome story
and an awesome force for good. As we always say here on the show, came way to go.