Three CDN's in the Int'l Institute of Space Commerce (IISC) list of "Top 35 under 35" But Only One Lives in Canada

Image c/o IISC.

        By Henry Stewart

The Isle of Man based International Institute of Space Commerce (IISC), established in 2007 as a cooperative venture between the International Space University (ISU) and the Government of the Isle of Man, has released a listing of the "IISC Top 35 Under 35 Class of 2018" space industry movers and shakers.

As outlined in the July 25th, 2018 IISC press release, "State of the Industry Special Edition; IISC 35 Under 35 Class of 2018," the good news is that three Canadian's are included with the list.

The bad news is that only one of those Canadians still lists Canada as the place where they live and/or work.

The IISC list of top 35 under 35 included the following Canadian's:

• Beth Downer, the founder of Reaching Space Science, a Netherlands based space communications company who also works as a space science communicator at Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands. According to her LinkedIn profile, Downer received her science BA from Memorial University of Newfoundland. 

• Joel Spark, the co-founder and CTO of San Franscisco CA based Spire Global, a US based privately held company specializing in collecting and reselling data gathered from a network of more than seventy Earth observation cubesats currently deployed in low Earth orbit. Spark received his engineering BA from Ottawa ON based Carlton University.

• Tahir Merali, a project management engineer with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) who remains the only Canadian on the list who currently lives in Canada. Merali lives in Montreal PQ and received his engineering BA from the University of Toronto. 

All three Canadian's honoured spent time at the International Space University (ISU) as did most of the rest of the people on the list.

As outlined in a January, 2018 post to the IISC webpage, "The 2018 35 Under 35 in the Space Industry Awards," the IISC is "proud to recognize and award the brightest young entrepreneurs, innovators, authors, artist, technicians, engineers, researchers, and overall game changers in the space industry as part of its 35 under 35 annual award."

Now if only a few more of them could find jobs in Canada.

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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym of a Toronto based aerospace writer.