Clara Venture Labs CEO, Bernt Skeie, at Spaceport Norway 2021 The LIfe Sessions (Bergen)
On Thursday 18 November Spaceport Norway came to the "Ocean Capital" Bergen for the first time. On the program we had earth observation and ocean specialists from European Space Agency, a start-up working with space data and sustainable shrimp farming from Bergen, investors and of course the future of small launchers, our industry sponsor ISAR Aerospace from Germany.
But our main reason to come to Bergen was the newly launched and ambitious organisation and brand, Clara Venture Labs.
Clara Venture Labs is built on and around the industrial R & D company CMR Prototech, that was bought by the large industrial corporation Aker, this summer. Bernt Skeie (CEO, Clara Venture Labs) introduced the physical and digital audience to Clara, and how they plan to create and mature ventures based on new ideas, innovation and technology from inside and outside their eco-system. Clara Venture Labs is a new and exciting addition to the industrial innovation eco-system in Norway, built on a rich history and legacy from the CMR Prototech years and before that.
They also have #newspace as one of their focus areas, we are super excited about the near future for Clara - check out their current portfolio of current venture companies here.
ISAR Aerospace had the keynote talk on the Spectrum launch vehicle that they currently are developing, and the long term commitment for operations in Norway, starting with the maiden launch that is planned late 2022 from Andøya in the North of Norway. Craig Donlon, Head of Earth Surface and Interior Sec. at European Space Agency, talked about nuanced, detaild and how important space infrastructure is to monitor the development in our ocean. To understand, to prepare and also to mitigate the many challenges climate changes and pollution represents today and going forward. The well being of our ocean is critical to all life on earth.
The start-up, Dynaspace, presented how they now are sharpening their focus of their service, targeting a part of the marine industry that has significant sustainability challenges, and we got to meet an investor from Bergen that gave an entertaining talk about his journey and experience as an investor, interested in electrification - electric aeroplanes included - space technology and space companies like Orbital Machines.
The last talk in Bergen came from Carla Filotico, a partner in the international constulting agency SpaceTec Partners, that shared global trends in space investments, development in Europe and also teased a new report coming out from SpaceTec Partners in December. We look forward to read and learn more in a few weeks.
Our venue this evening was the co-working space Bergen.Works, a relatively young venue (Est. 2017) with focus on social innovation and creative tech entrepreneurs. We would love to see more people in Bergen, but the venue was a good fit for the dedicated crowd that showed up this evening.
As we have said at all the life sessions so far, these evenings are a small taste menu of what is moving right now - there will be a lot more to look forward to in 2022, Spacerport Norway will be back as an international space business meeting arena, conference and expo, with a larger format and high-end production. Details about Spaceport Norway 2022 will be announced late 2021.
Now we are getting ready for our fifth and last event in The Life Sessions series - on Andøya, the location for commercial satellite launches in Norway from next year. Check out the program on Andøya 24 November here - stay tuned!
