Natavan Hasanova of Azercosmos tells us about the power of embracing gender equality and investing in female leaders.
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00:00 From the childhood, actually, it was also my goal to contribute to the socioeconomic development.
00:07 My parents, they insisted that I need to become a teacher, and I said, "No, I will go to Baku State University.
00:14 Just trust me, I will gradually build my own career."
00:22 When I joined Azar Cosmos, for me, there were female role models leading heavily technical departments and teams.
00:30 Azerbaijani women, they are leading a male-dominated industry.
00:34 Seeing representation really makes it achievable, it's accessible, I can do it as well.
00:39 And actually, it happened gradually.
00:41 And now, I am leading around 10 people.
00:44 There is a gender equality in my team.
00:47 Half of it is female and half of it is male.
00:50 And I think this good mixture of different perspectives really gives a good result.
00:55 I'm really proud of working in the space industry.
00:59 It's very unique, and it benefits humanity with lots of means.
01:05 We provide data and video services to more than 200 customers from more than 40 countries.
01:13 We are providing geographic information services, for instance, ecology, water resource management, and change detection, object detection.
01:22 We are also observing changes impacted by the climate change.
01:27 And all those are being detected and being reported to the government,
01:31 so they can make policy based on data coming from satellite and coming from the ground.
01:36 We have agency functions in order to develop space ecosystem in Azerbaijan through different means,
01:41 events, competitions, hackathons, acceleration programs.
01:45 We hosted International Astronautical Congress in Azerbaijan as being the most diverse IAC event held,
01:52 with 132 countries.
01:55 For the first time, the federation achieved around 50 new members from neighboring regions.
02:01 The vision of other cosmos inspires me that I can be in the level of the international leaders in the space sector.
02:08 I attended International Space University, Willis-Trasport, in order to do my executive space course.
02:14 Now I am also trying to transfer this knowledge.
02:17 I am currently mentoring youngsters as a part of our mentorship program for women.
02:23 And we have other international mentors.
02:26 I see it as a process of planting a seed of inspiration, and now I see how the big trees it's emerging.
02:34 One of our mentees got accepted from Harvard University to do her bachelor of science in space related field.
02:41 I see more and more female leaders across all industries in Azerbaijan.
02:46 If you have vision and the direction you want to go, keep working,
02:50 and gradually the roles and ways will lead you to that shoot for the moon.
02:54 If not moon, you will end up among the stars.
02:57 [BLANK_AUDIO]