
Presenting at the International Space Development Conference (ISDC), St. Louis, USA
The International Space Development Conference (ISDC) was held from 26-29 May 2017 in St. Louis, USA. The ISDC is the annual flagship event of the National Space Society (NSSS) and is held in a different city every year.
This was my third ISDC event. I have presented previously at the ISDC 2016 (Puerto Rico)and in ISDC 2015 (Toronto) on topics relating to climate change, open data, and 3D printing.
ISDC has a friendly format with lots of plenary and parallel sessions on wide ranging space issues. It makes it possible to attend sessions of one’s interest, and learn about newer space initiatives.
This year I was invited to give 2 presentations and conduct a workshop for middle school students. The first presentation was under the track “Many Roads to Space” and was titled : Making Sense of Data from Space: The Citizen Science Approach.
The presentation was based on my several years of experience of using satellite data from various NASA Satellites (LandSat, Terra Modis, Terra Aqua) as well as Canadian Satellites (RadarSat-2) for projects relating to climate change, disaster management, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also built on my NASA Space Apps Toronto challenge winning project – Drop the Drought which uses open data from satellites to predict climate change induced droughts and possible migration patterns.