Start introducing ourselves. Um I'm Natalia Bailey, um like Margo said, CTO and founder of Axion Systems. Um Axion is a space propulsion company that um I founded out of my phd work.Uh So I've done uh Bachelor's master's and phd with a focus most of the time on um space propulsion specifically. And um there uh around the time I was getting ready to graduate, there was a lot of interest in um a new type of propulsion technology for smaller and smaller satellites because the industry was undergoing this big change. And so we had a lot of interest and decided to form the company. Hi, Perna just got started with an intro. Um And so we formed um Axion in 2014 and um now we're about 60 people. Uh and we've done a, a combination of funding the business with venture capital, um and some government non diluted funding. And now we're um really starting to, to pick up on the commercial contract and revenue side and we have five launches coming up of our, our first product and um two of them later this month.

All right. Well, hello ladies. Thank you. So much. Uh Can you guys hear me? Yes. All right there it is. Technology is working. Um Well, th thanks again, ladies for, for joining us um Anna. So, so uh honored to be here with all of you and thank you everybody for uh sharing a part of your day with us. Um I think we've done the side of the intro. So I'm gonna let that continue Natalia. Thank you so much. Um Elana, would you like to go next? Absolutely.

So um my name is Lana Gra Eo and founder for uh Exter Robotics. Uh This is the company out of mit focused on robotics for construction. Um The for the company was to eliminate the productivity gap to increase safety to be sure that construction industry is on track with the the right environment ability impact. But uh in fact, next is basically a core at this point for avoiding an automation transformation. We carry a huge chunk to connect different type of technologies, robots uh convey or any type of machinery that might be involved in construction, make it into single listing and be efficient that safe. Um Now we're quite excited. We have an amazing partner working with us. It's Gilbane Construction. Uh It's a New England, very famous construction company. And together we soon will be announcing our first platform um oriented for safety again, for environmental impact, any type of progress, tracking. So happy to share more details and uh looking forward to participating in discussion today.

Awesome, thanks Lana Debbie.

Um I'm Debbie Theobald. I'm the founder of Benet Health Care. And um we do information technology solutions and robotics, um telepresence for health care and, you know, especially we've learned a lot of lessons over the last year with um the responses to and the demands from COVID.

Um and how we can push ourselves forward into this next uh new normal. Um specifically, uh we handle a lot of the administrative aspects of, of health care um through everything from your appointment made all the way through the, the registration, financial clearance and, and automated check in.

Uh and then even towards um you know, the concierge remote presence uh through the through the visit. Um we're also expanding into home health care uh type of applications um where we can create more peace of mind for um patients, their families, informal caregivers and care teams uh to be able to manage and coordinate um all of the activities that go along with living with um uh with health care challenges.

And that could be something as, as easy or, or I guess as mild as, as anxiety to, you know, Alzheimer's and uh early onset dementia and things. Um And so helping people stay healthy, helping their families stay healthy and staying in their homes longer. So we're really excited about the advances in technology, the innovations that are really making this um possible and, you know, some of the silver lining of coming out of our recent uh you know, situations that are pushing us to really enable and enact those solutions um in a real world manner.

So we're excited to be here too.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much. So, I am the, is that my echo? Um So I'm the founder of uh brand, brand and buzz. You guys hearing an echo.

We're figuring out that if you have two tabs open, that might be an echo. So if you,

I don't have a tab, I just have one open. Um Anyway, I'll, I'll keep going and I'll, I'll figure it out once you guys start talking. Sorry about that. Um So I'm the founder of Brandon Bizz Marketing. We are a consulting firm based here in Lovely Boston. Um We have the distinct privilege of working with a variety of global technology companies, entrepreneurs and transformational leaders and help them boost their market presence and company value the best part of my job. And also my passion is to spotlight amazing people doing amazing things, making a difference, impacting uh you know, our society, especially women. And that's actually one of the reasons why I started my consulting firm. So today, as you guys just heard, we have three amazing women uh tech entrepreneurs right here and from my hometown Boston. Um And uh so we're gonna be talking a little bit about um you know, the emerging technologies, but more importantly, I think, you know, technology and how, and what it means to us, you know, we just heard, um, what Debbie Lena and Natalia talk a little bit about the impact. Um, so that's where we're going to be focusing on. So it's, um, but before we get started, I just wanted to tell you why robots in space is really something that the topics are really close to my heart and of course my profession.

So when my kids were young, um I took both my kids, uh son and daughter along with a whole bunch of um there's, you know, kindergartners or was that uh first graders? I can't even remember to go see Sally Wright, the astronaut who was here in Boston many years ago. And it was such a treat because you never really, I never really thought that I would ever get to meet an astronaut, let let alone like, shake her hands and hear her talk and listen to about, you know, all the amazing stories. So that was, I think, you know, my first um touchpoint with space like live in person. The second thing that happened was um I started my career um in the robotics world. So I um I was part of the amazing team at Irobot and my son was five years old at that time. So I used to take him to our office so he could play with the robots do demos and um and, and essentially you know, one day over there he told me, oh mom, I'm going to be a roboticist.

So many years later, he is now doing his masters at Carnegie Mellon in robotics and he is doing his internship at SpaceX as we speak. So now you see, it's very personal. This topic is extremely personal to me and I'm so very honored to be speaking with all of you today. So let's get started. Um Why don't we start with the, why? Um why did you uh decide to launch your respective companies? And when you share that perhaps, tell us a little bit more about what got you to where you are today. Um Lana, would you like to start

always? So um um yeah, uh again, so next robotics is, is what it's uh basically a robotic aimed for uh construction industry, just like completely uh in general, I've been doing robotics for many years, more than 10 years and uh always very lucky to be a few years ahead of a demand.

Uh At first, we were building a very fancy platforms, you know, like with quite famous companies. Later, we were doing a software that is meta language that is trying to connect all type of machinery. And then uh we realized that there is a different version already, not only for building blocks in robotics, they're looking for solutions or they're looking for all type of health that might be good for them. Revelation. Uh when we were in biotech by a farm industry, we are roboticist, right? We have no idea about the main expertise. And uh we started to partner, you know, with the, you know, Purdue University and uh we learned how it was great to have a partner with the domain expertise. And we started to see where else robotic might be crucial. Uh what would be the new challenges, endeavors for, for us as a team and where we could software, we realized that that would be um construction. And of course, we will be building that with our um experts in the field, right? With the department within the field idea started uh exactly from environmental and sustainability impacts. When that was a question I would have I or whatever, like can robots help with sustainability? Can robots help with climate?

And we were quite embarrassed to get that question because we, we did never like create. And I remember at some point I was uh talking at home with my spouse and that's the passion of my spouse, all everything about environmental impact and sustainability, all the social justice stuff.

And I said like, well, actually robots are pretty much uh applicable here. And we started to see one of the most impactful industries in terms of environment. Uh And that was a side of farm and all this agriculture that was construction uh quite in the negative zone. And we were like, well, nothing good with the software and it was absolutely aligned with our business case. So we are started and uh we can see the impact already. Uh I'll tell a bit later, you know about the products that has a tremendous impact on the environment. But if to use a precise amount of land or any type of material use in construction, it's already a reduction of waste for like 30 40%. Sometimes same for, you know, the cleanness, the precision, the same. So that is kind of our uh input, our kind of uh participation in literally making and shifting the and the better. So I'll stop here. Thank you.

Awesome. That,

yeah, I think it's a somewhat of a similar story where, you know, if you see a need, you fill a need, right? And um and how you're made aware of that need can come in so many different ways and, and maybe different ways across your, across your career. Um So we've been in health care for quite a few years and um you know, how you get introduced or um you know, evolve within the, the needs of the um of the industry can be, can be very different of the things that push you here or there. Um So we originally started offering some of our um our solutions to really um streamline the process for, for patients. I mean, um it's just so arduous to deal with the healthcare system now. Um And, you know, everybody's a patient at some point. And so how could we improve this process? Um And how can we use technology and some of these evolving um technologies to uh to really make an impact. And I've been lucky enough that we started, you know, before uh cloud computing and really as tablets were coming up and as each of these new technologies came through, it's been um just made it so much easier to solve some of these problems and uh help people to get access to health care better.

And now that we're moving into more acceptance of robotics. So, um you know, starting off with robotic vacuum cleaners in their homes, you know, and then moving on to lawn mowers or then in, in industry or in other things that it's just becoming much more of a, a granted thing that people are going to, to see auto autonomous vehicles um around in all aspects of their lives.

And this is a really exciting time so that we can start to uh open people's minds to the different use cases um that are available now for, for what we do as the telepresence robots. Um and, and really make a lot of opportunities for, you know, people to be um staff augmentation and to, to be in different locations without having to commute from one place to another to see those patients to have specialized um types of caregivers um in a location, whether that's psychiatric or pediatric or other things in areas where, or, or neurological, where they might not have access to that level of expertise if they didn't have that kind of telepresence component.

So, until we get teleportation, which if any of you are working on, I'm, I'm totally in, let me know. Uh, telepresence is our, our next best bet.

Very cool. Well, there was a time when we thought, you know, it was the Jetsons only could do what they're doing and now we're talking telepresence like we've definitely come a long way. Um Natalia.

Yeah. Um So I suppose, you know, personally, um why I started the company, I think if you end up with a career in um space, you know, maybe, you know, I was a quirky kid, I think you kind of have to be in order to pursue um this field all the way, but I was really into aliens. Um And I was also um I had a knack for math and I had a great guidance counselor that was like you can combine those things um in, you know, aerospace engineering and, and then I, as I mentioned, I eventually focused down into space propulsion. Um So what was happening? Yeah, you know, as um Lana and Debbie mentioned, we, we also identified a problem. So, um over the, well, you know, opportunity um over the past, you know, probably about 15 years now. Um in the space industry, uh folks have been looking at building smaller and smaller satellites and this is for, you know, a variety of, of reasons. Um uh big satellites are just really expensive. They're on the order of, you know, 1 to $2 billion. So that meant that since the inception of the industry, space was really the exclusive domain of, you know, wealthy nations and governments and, and defense programs and was pretty much inaccessible to anybody else. So, um, costs have been coming down.

Um, it's kind of a bit of a chicken and an egg but, you know, as you know, Moore's Law or just more, more and more technology has been developed, the cost to um, build a satellite, um, has decreased significantly, um, the size of the computers and, and radios and, um, you know, other electronics that you need to put inside a spacecraft to make it functional and, and perform a mission, those have become smaller, um, and so smaller, cheaper spacecraft are now becoming, um, you know, that's a bit of the status quo now.

And so that means that everyone from, you know, Amazon to um, hobbyists in their garage. Um, and our, our first paying customer was actually a, um, a high school, uh, an extracurricular um program with high school students that built and launched a satellite with our ion engine on it. So, just to, you know, I hope that helps, put it in perspective how much the industry has changed recently, but what wasn't changing was, was propulsion. Um So the only options were um these, you know, sedan sized ion engines and hall thrusters that were great when your satellite was the size of a school bus and was two b, $2 billion but not if your satellite was the size of a shoe box and, you know, cost 40 K. And no one, none of the existing players were trying to address this. Um As, as far as we could tell. Um And we happened to be working on um a technology that was really well suited to sort of this new paradigm of, you know, first most important was cost. Um And, and reliability and performance was sort of now at the bottom of the list of requirements.

And we thought, hey, great, that's exactly what we're working on. Um a small affordable way to do this. Um And then, you know, the thought crossed our mind, should we just license this to one of the big aerospace prime contractors like a Lockheed or a Boeing? And um you know, be done with it? And we, you know, I think a healthy dose of delusion or something we're like, you know, we're doing this so differently from how they've built space systems. In the past, we're using silicon MEMS manufacturing techniques. Um We're using a totally new propellant, everything about it was, was different. And so we figured, you know, we had a shot at actually um finishing the development and building systems and getting them out to customers faster than a more established player could do. So that's why we started Axiom.

Awesome, fascinating. So we, you know, we are obviously talking about tech, but one question that comes up, I think a lot, especially when we're talking about automation. Atlanta, I'll, I'll maybe start with you here um in the construction industry, for example, um there are data points that talk about um you know, how automation would be displacing as much as uh 50% of the, the workforce. But at the same again, I don't think that's, that's a new stat no matter which industry you are in. And the second relevant point also, they talk about um how not too many young people are joining, you know, whether it's construction manufacturing, you name it. So the first question that often comes is that, you know, will automation and robots take over our jobs and given the um the limitation of the, the, the, the limited number of people who might be there for, from a skills perspective. Do you think that um automation will stimulate the job market um or, or uh or, or deal with the possible labor shortage issue that, that we might be facing down the road? Awesome. So they're all automation essentially,

of course. Yeah. So um automation enabler for a market development for sure, short answer to um replacement of jobs and, you know, displacing people. It's and uh I'll give a few examples when we were choosing the right partners uh to be the main expert in construction. Uh One of the key um painful questions for them, the shortage of labor and they persistently constantly looking into the solutions that could uh when they're looking for bigger projects or when they need to close the project at the particular time. So robots for them, it's enablers to be on time projects with buildings, with, you know, like bridges, anything dumps. Uh What's interesting. Uh Nobody is really thinking how evolving our how many emerging markets are getting there. Um You know, in terms of construction sites, uh it was probably around four in terms how many of them all around the United States and around the globe. And if you look at the from a city life perspective, uh 10, like let's say North Carolina area and these days, it's like 30 maybe 40% more of the terrain is now developed in terms of construction, manufacturing facilities, whatever. Uh And the question why there is a shortage of labor? It's just because there are more and more developed. Uh you know, markets and people are coming everywhere, just like new developments, we definitely developing. Uh second thing in terms of robotics.

Uh It never will be ever a problem. Feel a competition to a robot, maybe I'm talking here as an engineer because I know how much work is around any type of machinery because you place one machine, your belt and then you have constantly service connectivity. You know, all this RP A unit economics, all the all those type of infrastructure that are that I mentioned at the same time, enabling people to produce more, to produce probably better and et cetera. But here is the question, do we are we gonna use only to make it cheaper faster and doesn't matter, you know, what would be the outcome towards the future towards the planet? I'm quite happy that we have this discussion. My goal as uh many uh of robotics professionals is to be sure that it increased quality, it improve our lives. It's actually good way. So I hope that I answered somehow the question. So, thanks.

Oh, that's good. Debbie Natalia, do you have anything to add to that

bigger shortage is, is a key indicator in, in the health care industry as well, especially and um and home health care needs. Um We have uh a lot of, you know, family caregivers that are doing it themselves. Um And it's a huge burden and so anything that can help alleviate um that, you know, the anxiety and the burden and the um you know, the care that goes in um a lot of just billions of dollars of unpaid work that's happening uh in our, in our homes right around us. Um If there's anything that we can do to help them, uh I think it's much appreciated and, and nobody is going to be worrying about um, you know, not having enough uh uh or visiting nurses, um not uh getting their jobs anymore or um or health care workers or things like that.

Um So I think anything that can help support them would be a uh a benefit to the society.

I, I think that's, that's a really interesting perspective because, you know, we are always worried about technology, taking, taking over jobs, But the pandemic proved that that is not always the case because it, you know, technology essentially enabled us to do so much, you know, whether it's work or staying connected with people even, you know, you were talking about telepresence.

Um But look at how we were talking to our doctors like we were doing that via zoom. So it's not like the doctors disappeared just because we could, we could talk to them. Um So I wonder, um Debbie based on this, did you have to do a, a big pivot uh from a company perspective to support um the, the kind of the, the whole digital era that we were living in,

um the health care industry basically shut down and they were really overwhelmed, all the elective procedures were all canceled and things. And so um there was a very, very little kind of innovation except around necessity, like the necessity was definitely the mother end of innovation over the past year. Um But as people have come to um assess where they are and what they could be doing and how this new normal is going to be. Um, they certainly opened their minds to a lot more fluid, um, uh, solutions. Uh, whereas before they were like, we could never do that. I think it's much the same in the business, um, world where we're, like, work from home. You can't work from home and now we're like, actually, I guess you can work from home. And now it's gonna be a uh a job to convince people that they need to come back to the office and that you need to be there as a team since we did it for, for a year away from each other. So the same thing with healthcare, um you know, there was lobbying by the American Telemedicine Association for many, many years for telemedicine visits.

Finally, you know, after 15 years, they got the C MS to pay for it and to acknowledge that it was actually was a visit, it could be counted and, and paid for under Medicare and Medicaid and also in the private payers. And luckily, you know, that was all done prior in laying that groundwork. So that when we have something like this, there is an infrastructure in our framework in place where people can start to rapidly adopt it. Um The things where that infrastructure still needs to be laid and we're behind the curve and something like this happens, that's, that's a bad place to be. Um And so if we, if we were to have this kind of pandemic, we didn't have the technology and we didn't have the framework, nobody would be doing telemedicine visits. And then what would you do? Go back to house calls or, or something like that? I'm not sure how we would have, we would have done that pandemics in the past have done it. Um And so as we're looking to the future and saying, you know, what are the things, the foundations that we laid in place? Do we need these, you know, pivotal events to, to transform us or can we open our minds and see new things um as to as to where we can go.

And so it's nice that some of these have a uh a business need business driver and there's a demand for it immediately. There are people who can see what that opportunity is and then they create that demand within the marketplace. And then there will be other things that follow along um that just become kind of um offshoots of this as we see the applicability and in other aspects of our lives. So that's exciting when we see, you know, uh a business driver into space, for example, or you know, robots into construction that you can say, OK, somebody has blazed the trail and now we have low cost and now we have the technology, we have this framework and now as these pieces start to fall together.

You just need like the right amount of um precipitation for all of that to kind of come together and create a whole new economic system of, of delivery of some of these new, new technologies and new ideas. It's really exciting.

Yeah. No, exciting times. And speaking of trailblazing, let's talk a little bit about space. So you obviously, I'm sure you guys have seen that Jeff Bezos and his brother, they're going to be taking off to space in there. I think that's going to be the uh blue origin's first suborbital flight. Um It also appears that there is a, a lot of rich men who ha who are planning their trips um which is really great. I'm waiting to see, you know, a woman or two taking, taking that leap as well. Um But obviously, you know, the, the space ecosystem is definitely expanding right now and um some of the technologies and start ups that um that, that we get to interact with are doing some fascinating things. So, for example, one of my, my client's customer uh is called um Orbit Fab. They're a San Francisco based tech company, they're creating the first ever gas station in space. Um So it's, it's happening, right? But um Natalia from your perspective, and obviously there is a long way to go before we can all, you know, have um have houses and offices and hospitals and MARS space or what have you, um what are you particularly excited about as you are part of this industry and everything that's happening around us today?

Yeah. Um So, you know, I, I again went into the field because I like exploration aspect and um you know, a chance as a species to understand more about the universe and our origins. And um and, and then equally, I think this um space becoming more accessible to people is, is very inspiring. Um But back to the, the other bit, the more sci fi aspect, almost um uh a big piece of, you know, in the next few centuries is, you know, we hopefully become more spacefaring um is going to be, you know, multiple spacecraft or, or at least, you know, more than one um performing rendezvous type missions, you know, approaching another spacecraft, doing a docking, maybe doing refueling and, you know, and, and that's perfect that you just mentioned, you know, orbit fab in their gas station.

So, um right now, it still is pretty far fetched to think of uh a satellite that's been launched, going up to uh uh orbiting, you know, fuel depot and refueling itself and then leaving like that just that doesn't happen today. Um But it's such a critical piece, those types of capabilities are so critical to, you know, uh if we hope to have a more permanent presence um in orbit. And um just recently, I think, well, I think the first one launched um maybe end of 2019. But the second one just launched a couple of months ago, uh Northrop Grumman built two spacecraft called MEV one and two that went up to two different uh defunct satellites. So satellites that had already finished their design lifetime, they had already, they were in um uh uh geo orbit. So, you know, 40,000 ish kilometers uh above the, the surface of the earth. Um They had performed their mission for about 15 years. Um And then they pushed themselves out into what we call graveyard orbit. Um because space is limited up there if you want to stay pointing at the same spot on the earth there, um you know, only a given number of slots for satellite. So when you finish your, you have to push yourself out even farther out into graveyard orbit.

So these two spacecraft, these two missions involve these mev craft um going up into graveyard orbit, grabbing those satellites, pulling them back into orbit and then staying latched onto them and providing them with um maneuvering capability so that they could point their um their antenna and you know, their, their payload back at earth and continue performing their mission for another five years.

So each of those will now have another five years um beyond the 15 years that they already completed. Um And you know, those are, each year in revenue is in the hundreds of millions of dollars for one of these satellites. And so, um just having that capability, but really, you know, uh so that's incredible, you know, commercial revenue, blah, blah blah. But as a stepping stone, I think to some of the really exciting things we'll need to be able to do to become more space. Faring is just so exciting to me.

I know. And II, I don't think in my lifetime I'll be going to space that I'm definitely watching it and seeing all the, the changes and the innovations that, that are coming. Um and it all started with that trip many years ago to see Sally, right? And um yeah, and my last article in, in um Forbes was just on that very topic. So um switching gears a little bit, you know, I feel that we are so very privileged um that we have access to phenomenal technology, we have um the internet connection. So, you know, the the whole um cutting access to cutting edge technologies, high bandwidth, those are all great that allows us to do what we do without um excuse me, without missing a beat. But then there are countries like Uganda or Kenya where they don't have such connectivity, Lana. I wonder um if you could. Um So do you think there are any global projects that are underway just to help some of these underprivileged um countries um stay more connected, do more and have access to technologies.

So it's interesting how um privileged as you say, or like developed community and developed countries right now, talking and thinking about sustainability. It's all about global collaboration these days. Uh If whoever was participating in the conference for World Economic Forum, percent of topics uh aside of environmental impact, of course, it was about partnerships. So we all, you know, need to pull it out together, work and uh provide each other with knowledge support, you know, like labor, et cetera. Uh where I'm heading with that, aside of robotics, uh my kind of uh my passion, it's about neural networks A I machine learning, there are multiple projects going on with the companies from San Fran. Um for example A I labeling super important for self driving cars, the session that we were just, you know, like listening to um anything that relates uh different type of A I products and et cetera and those skills uh that are like really might be a luxury at this time. Um world that might be too expensive to produce um something like a services with that, they might be outsourced to let's say emerging markets. And this, it's amazing when it's not just like to say like, hey, who could label like high granularity things for us.

It's about the transfer of knowledge develop just uh like supporting that parity, you know, like that balancing between female and male coders developing those at the same time, not holding people within those networks, right? Like I literally let them fly, let them be developed and et cetera.

I think it is amazing what's happening in my practices. I do um encounter a bunch of A I machine learning, deep learning companies and all of them having their or having second offices, third offices in countries like Uganda, Kenya, you know, Southeast Asia, India, of course, obviously, and the funny, it's not about getting the cheapest version for labeling for A I.

It's about making an impact. And this turnaround, this pivot happened probably like a couple of years ago, maybe uh particularly when you start to celebrate those, you know, like diversity that global support. And I think uh we're talking about this, uh for example, you would get inspired, you know, like I will definitely think more about how to do even better, even more towards that. Do we literally uh use all our food to help to spread that support? Because it is important uh back uh into my, for example, background, I have mixed the European, but how many mentors all around the globe were helping me pushing me forward, challenging me and then sharing like, absolutely, you know, like without any idea that back or whatever different advice is supporting me.

So with that idea, having technology enhanced, um I quite absolutely fascinated with opening right now.

Yeah, I think, I think, I think um that's a really good point and I know there's um there's a lot of students that are listening to, to us today. Um You just talked about having sponsors and mentors. How do you think a student can go about finding uh a mentor or sponsors? And I'm opening this to, you know, whoever wants to answer this. Um So that, you know, they have the opportunity to learn more, they have somebody who's telling them what to do. Uh Obviously, the teachers play a big role but where else can students go to get the inspiration, the motivation and to learn more?

I probably will be just super quick to answer that. And uh I'll, I'll be silent. I promise. Uh I will kind of share a bit of my story. When I got a fin I asked her like, why did you like replied? And she said like, well, you wrote me like a huge email with uh why I to you. So obviously, you did like some kind of a research and then just kinda, you probably were honest that uh you need help. It's not that you're this great or like you did this and that and you have questions. So I was obviously sure that I can help you answer that. Kinda. So she kinda said you were so that's what I would definitely encourage. And uh obviously, it is super important in terms of kind, be brave to ask probably spot,

I think I just sort of along the same lines. I've had the best luck when I've had very, you know, targeted questions and problems I needed help on and I did research and found someone whose background and experiences and skills would match those. So, um you know, I, I would maybe recommend against like a just generally approaching someone to be a mentor and, you know, not really giving thought to what that might mean in the very near term. But if you have very specific challenges you're facing, you know, getting clear about what those are and why the person you're reaching out to might be a good fit. Um I found that that can work better and, and then if I keep going back to the same person multiple times with more related questions and there's chemistry, then, you know, I may formalize it and ask them to be an advisor or something like that.

Great point.

Um I have uh many mentors from afar and maybe kind of like girl crushes or something like that. Um And so I, I look at people's lives and study kind of what they do and who, what they're associated with and, and how they've done their career. It started when I was in college and we got our first female professor in the Aero Astro Department. Natalia is living my life. I, I veered away from the Aero Astro many years ago, um Someday I hope to get back there. Um But uh she came into the department, the faculty and I just kind of like glued myself to her and learned everything I could about her path and what she did and, you know, eventually I, I did get to work with her and it was, it was fantastic. Um, so I've kind of continued that as I've gone through as well. So they don't, you know, maybe they don't have a direct relationship with me, but I, I have definitely learned a lot from them. I think getting involved is also huge. And so in your industry um becoming involved in industry associations, um having networking events, just getting to know people. And I think what Natalia said there about, you know, having chemistry with people is huge. You can't force a mentorship, not something that's really authentic.

Um And so that's would be, that would be my uh

fantastic tips. Thank you so much. I know we are out of time. We could continue this conversation infinity and beyond, for sure. Um Thank you all for joining. Um Please do follow these phenomenal ladies watch their journey. I'm sure they'll, you know, there's a lot that's coming from, from you guys. And if there's anything I can do to help any of you just uh ping me on linkedin. Thank you so much for being here.