Susmita Mohanty Keynote Speaker

The only person in the world to set up space companies on 3 different continents
Voted one of BBC's most influential women worldwide
One of the Financial Times' '25 Indians to watch'

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Susmita Mohanty's Biography

Susmita Mohanty is a spaceship designer, entrepreneur and space diplomat. A protégé of the late science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, she seamlessly straddles the worlds of art, architecture, design, technology and business.

Susmita is the only space entrepreneur in the world to have co-founded companies on 3 different continents: EARTH2ORBIT, Bangalore (2009-2021), MOONFRONT, San Francisco (2001-2007) and LIQUIFER Systems Group, Vienna (2004-ongoing). Her latest endeavour launched in October 2021 is India’s first dedicated space think tank called Spaceport SARABHAI.

Prior to turning entrepreneur, she worked for the International Space Station Program at Boeing in California and on Shuttle-Mir missions at NASA Johnson in Houston. She is a big believer in “technology diplomacy” and says “one of the best ways to ensure the world doesn’t go off course is through international collaboration in critical and emerging tech.”

Susmita is a NewSpace expert. She advises investors and policy makers on matters related to the emerging NewSpace economy. As a space diplomat, she promotes cooperation between countries and is invited for discussions and debates related to space safety, security and sustainability in a volatile global geopolitical landscape.

Susmita has been invited as a keynote speaker, thought leader, innovator, interdisciplinary expert, space entrepreneur, renaissance woman – to events across the planet. She has also been widely featured in the press. She has also been a political appointee where she headed a program covering 67,000 schools and 7.2 million children in Odisha (India).

In 2019, Susmita was selected as one of BBC’s 100 Women laureates inspiring and influencing a female-led future. In 2017, she was featured on the cover of Fortune Magazine. In 2012, she was voted into Financial Times’ list of “25 Indians to Watch”. In 2016, she was nominated to the World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Future Council for Space Technologies. In 2005, Susmita was honoured on Capitol Hill in Washington DC with the International Achievement Award for promoting international cooperation through space ventures.

Susmita is an ardent traveller and explorer. She is probably the only person in the world to have visited the Arctic and Antarctica, on invitation and hopes that someday, she can take long sorties on the Moon.