Be your own role model: A female rocket scientist, pioneer and science influencer explains

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures I was immediately dismissed as the person that's going to take notes, and not the person that's gonna present the rocket.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader Welcome to meet the leader, the podcast where top leaders share how they’re tackling the world's biggest challenges. In today's episode, we talk to a female rocket scientist and science influencer about how to chart your own course and be your own role model.

Subscribe to Meet The Leader on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And don’t forget to rate and review us. I’m Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum - and this is Meet the Leader.

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: Every opportunity you have when you fail is a data point.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader As a little girl, Mishaal Ashemimry looked up at the stars, and was immediately obsessed. It’s a passion that grew over time - and one that stood out. While there are signs of progress, women are still underrepresented in aerospace and make up 30 percent of the public space workforce. And in Saudi Arabia, where Mishaal was looking up at that night sky, there were no women studying the field and at the time there was no formal space agency.

So Mishaal charted her own path. Since aerospace wasn’t available in Saudi Arabia at the time, she did much of her schooling in the US. She’d go on to become the first female aerospace engineer in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and founded her own rocket startup at 26.

Today, she helms the Centre for Space Futures, a global hub established by the Saudi Space Agency and the World Economic Forum. There she works to shape better space policies and work with sectors to unlock the next phase of the space economy. But she’s also an active science influencer on YouTube and social media making science fun for an Arabic-speaking audience while driving awareness of STEM jobs.

Mishaal has forged her own path for much of her career -- something that might be more and more common in a fast paced world as workers make their way in new industries and adapt to serve new needs. She talked to me at our Global Technology Retreat in San Francisco about creating her own opportunities and navigating rooms where she was overlooked or underestimated.

She helps us understand how anyone can forge their own path -- and even be their own role model. She'll get into all that -- including what’s needed to get more people, especially women, into aerospace. But first, she’ll talk to us about that rocket startup -- and how it shaped her

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: When I was 26, I started Mishaal Aerospace, which is a rocket company specifically targeting small satellites to put them into low Earth orbit. Because at the time, satellites were miniaturizing and becoming smaller and smaller, but they didn't have a dedicated rocket to take them up there, they had to launch a secondary a tertiary payloads on bigger rockets. So therefore, sometimes they have to wait many years before they get manifested, or wait for the primary payload to be launched to be able to do so. So that's why I targeted that market.

The vision for the company was also to go to the moon and bring back samples to Earth, to facilitate the growth of the nuclear fusion, by providing them the helium-3 that they would require to be able to do that. So that was my vision for Mishaal Aerospace. And when we started, I had an investor fully vested in the business, and then obviously, things don't go as we planned, so we demonstrated a rocket and the design, and we did a static test fire of the rocket that we developed and it worked. Unfortunately, at the time, the appetite for investment in aerospace was very limited. The understanding of aerospace was limited. So, then I had to put the company on hold, even though we had a milestone of demonstrating the rocket.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Founders of all types hit walls, and you're able to push through, even though maybe the end goal isn't what you may have imagined, what did you do then? How did you sort of take these learnings forward?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: So, the way I categorize this, the walls that you're mentioning basically, or the obstacles that I faced while I had the company was basically two. One is technical, which I welcome with open arms because my motto was test early and test often, that way you can figure out where the problem lies before you put the full system together.

And then number two is financial issues, which I do not like because it's very hard to convince investors, especially at that time, where there is a low appetite for risk and long-term type investment, and a lot of them, they don't fully understand aerospace, so they shy away from it. And if they do, they are already invested in some of the companies that were in a similar business. And so those are the two types of problems I faced.

With the technical ones, I welcome them with open arms because you learn from the mistakes that you make from an engineering perspective. You modify and so you – let's say something failed, which it has – then you look at why it failed and then you improve it on the second take. And so it's a learning experience and it's manageable.

The financial aspect is little bit more complicated because you're not in control of… you can convince as much as you want, but if they don't want to take the risk, they're not going to take the risk. If they do not understand your technology, they are not going to invest, and so it becomes quite difficult. Now, today, the market is totally different. There is a higher appetite for risk. There is significant growth and interest in space, even from venture capital and so forth, and so they want to see things move forward. So the appetite is totally different today than back then.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: And what did that teach you about market timing?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: Sometimes, you may have something brilliant that… the funny part is we were dead on when it comes to the market and why we started the business, but we were in my opinion ahead of our time in terms of investor appetite. And so, sometimes you may have a great idea and it's great and it still is great and you're right on the mark, but it might not be the right time to have that business yet. I guess it's a learning opportunity. If you do start early, you're gonna get hit with a wall, and then see whether you can manage to bring it back up again at a later time or you basically pivot to something else.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: You were the first female aerospace engineer in the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council]. Tell us a little bit about that and maybe what has changed since for women looking to pursue this field.

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: So that title came by coincidence. It's not like I was six and decided, oh my god I'm gonna I have to be the first aerospace engineer. No. When I was six years old I was inspired by the stars. My mom took me to the desert in Unaizah. While I was born in the US, my family is from Saudi Arabia, and so when we, when I was in Saudi my mom took me to the desert when I was six looked up to the sky and I was mesmerized. And so I had a calling.

I felt like the stars were like, hey, we're up here, get curious. And so my decision back then was I love the stars, no-one is giving me the proper answer of what they are, why they're there, and so forth, so the only way to understand them is to go to space, and the only to go space is to make rockets. And that's how I decided to start my journey to become an aerospace engineer.

Obviously, back then I didn't know it was aerospace engineering, I just knew that I needed to make a rocket to go into space. And I pursued that. So, I had a really direct goal in life, I pursued it and then as I graduated with aerospace engineering, worked in the industry, I discovered that, hey, I am actually the first aerospace engineer that's a female in the GCC. And then I was like, holy moly, this comes with a huge responsibility, and if I'm the first, this is not a good sign. We need to have more people. Because I cannot be the only one. This makes absolutely no sense for the future.

So, then I took it upon myself to make sure that I rise to this responsibility and ensure that I disseminate as much knowledge that I acquire, globally and specifically in the GCC, so I have a lot of YouTube and so forth. That I try to encourage people to pursue STEM and to showcase how space is really exciting, because we need many people to come into this field and I should not be the first. There should be many to come.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: In the region, has there been a shift in opportunities being made available or sort of pipelines of things? What's changed for folks, women, going into aerospace since you started?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: So when I started my career and decided that I wanted to pursue aerospace engineering, a lot of people were like, oh, you're crazy, why would you do aerospace engineering? Saudi doesn't have aerospace engineering.

And I'm like, okay, but I like aerospace. And I was fortunate enough to be born and raised in the U.S. That I can actually work here in the field and so forth. So I had the experience.

And then slowly, and I've always advocated that aerospace is the way of the future. And so I encouraged Saudi to have aerospace as part of the agenda. Any interview I had, I always mentioned that. And in 2018, Saudi started the Saudi Space Commission. So that was a great sign that they're moving in that direction.

And although Saudi is not new to space because they did launch someone in 1985, His Royal Highness Prince Sultan bin Salman. But there hasn't been a lot of traction since 1985, and so there's an appetite for it, but then let's push it forward. And then in 2018, they started the space agency, and so now there is more focus on space.

Also, I've noticed that there's an increasing amount of women, as well as men, entering into the aerospace engineering field and studying that in school. And so these are great signs that we're moving in the right direction because even, let's say, if you don't want to work in aerospace, but you do have an aerospace engineering degree, it helps open doors to manufacturing and other elements and creativity in engineering, because you have a skill set and you have the fundamentals necessary to do so.

But luckily now that this sector is essentially, it has started. And it's growing and it is going to continue to grow and then we'll see what happens in the future. But it has changed tremendously from having practically no space industry to trying to push to get into the space industry.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: Unfortunately, like a lot of tech fields, women are still a smaller proportion. So women comprise just a fraction of aerospace. What two or three things in your mind are contributing to this?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: That's a great, complicated question.

When I was in college, we had a lot more women. But then as you go from year to year, the numbers start shrinking. And then when you graduate, you see a lot of the women left and decided to go somewhere else, and some of us continue.And then when I was doing my masters, in most classes I was basically the only woman in class. And so that's one issue. So either there's a distrust in continuing that field, a lack of interest in that field, and four, I think, is intimidation that is very male-dominated that some people tend to go.

The second thing, now we go into the workplace. You get into the workplace, and being an aerospace engineer and being a woman, it's very high demand. So, I found myself having to work four times as hard as a man in order to be recognized, or to be given the opportunity or to be considered seriously.

The other element is you start to have to develop a very thick skin when you enter these meetings, because I recall when I entered one of the design reviews, the room was full of men. And I was basically the only young, I, was young and a woman in that meeting. So I was immediately dismissed as the person that's going to take notes, and not the person that's gonna present the rocket. And obviously that has an emotional aspect to what you're trying to do – you know, you have this imposter syndrome. Am I an imposter? What's going on? So, you get up, in my case I got up and I was like, I don't care, Mish, you have to brush it off and focus on what you need to do which is showcase the design of this rocket. So I did.

When I got up, the full room that was full of men, they were like shocked, this little kid is gonna be talking about the design? I have thick skin, I can handle it, but a lot of people don't. And so should we have an environment like this for women? Some people will be like, I could do it one day, two days, but every single day I have to do this, I have walk in with this thick shell, trying to focus and trying to convince people that I know what I'm talking about. It's very detrimental emotionally.

The third thing that you notice is some people when they have a difficulty balancing the high stress and demand of an aerospace engineering job, and then raising a family. As a result, some of them end up leaving because they're like, well, I gotta start a family, I need to worry about my child. And there isn't an ecosystem that supports family life in aerospace – at least when I was there, I didn't see it – and so they end up leaving, and then it's very difficult for you to come back. Because being away for a year, two years, your skillset starts to diminish. And so the chances of you coming back is low.

So, if you go through the educational hurdle and you actually come through and you become an aerospace engineer, then the second hurdle is, I go in the workplace and can I balance that? Can I deal with this constant ‘I have to have thick skin’ stuff? Can I support the balance of family life and so forth? And then eventually you lose people there. That's mainly, I think, the contributors.

So it's entry and then it's retention. Those are the two issues that we're facing.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: You didn't have a role model necessarily, a female aerospace engineer role model. A lot of people in pioneering industries will never have a model because they're pioneers, right? How can anyone, and you had to do this for yourself, how can anyone be their own role model? How can they seek out maybe the examples that they need, even though maybe there's not a template in front of them? How can a better seek out what they need to move forward? What would you advise them to do?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: I think one, which may sound like a cliché, is you have to believe in yourself and believe that you are able to do it. You are not an imposter, you have the knowledge necessary, but you need to make sure that that knowledge grows continuously. You can't stop at university level and be like, Okay, I know everything.

No, because things change and things evolve and you need be aware of how things are changing. And incorporating that knowledge, so that you can actually grow from it. So continuous learning is a critical element. Believing in yourself is a critical element, having the resilience to fall and get back again, back up and try again.

Number three, a lot of people are afraid to fail. And my most important advice, and the thing that I always try to remind myself, is that failure is the seed from which success grows. You need, if you fail, it doesn't mean it's the end of the world. It means you need to get back up, learn from that failure, and continue. With that learning, you will acquire a skill set, in order for you to basically not fall into that pit again, because you've learned. And so you improve. And if you fail again, no problem. Learn from that. Every opportunity you have, when you fail, is a data point. And that data point can be implemented into your knowledge base and therefore you will succeed. And the more you fail, the more you're going to get closer to succeeding.

I'm not saying just fail for the sake of failing, but obviously do it in a way that you can learn and move on. But don't dwell on that failure because we will all fail. There's not a single human being that hasn't failed. So don't be afraid of it, welcome it with open arms, learn from it and move on. So those are the critical three lessons that I can provide in order to move forward in life.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: I have one last question for you. What's a piece of advice that you're grateful for?

Mishaal Ashemimry, Centre for Space Futures: That's a tough one. One piece of advice that I got was, sometimes when you have a difficult decision to make, sleep on it. Don't feel obligated to respond immediately. Sleep on it, think about it, and then make the decision. And I think that when we have a decision point to make, we feel like, Oh, we need to make it now. And that's not the case. So take your time. Study it. Be logical. Emotion is important, but also be logical in some of the decision-making that you make.

Linda Lacina, Meet The Leader: That was Mishaal Ashemimry. To learn more about space and in particular, the space economy, check out our report Space: The $1.8 Trillion Opportunity for Global Economic Growth. We'll make sure to have a link in our show notes.

And to listen to more podcasts, including my colleague’s podcast Radio Davos, go to wef.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Meet the Leader was produced and presented by me with Jere Johannson and Taz kelleher as editor, edward baily as studio engineer in San Francisco and Gareth Nolan driving studio production. That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum. Have a great day.