Curiosity AND Reaching for the Stars: Anousheh Ansari on becoming the first Iranian woman in space

Imagine. Be the change. Inspire - these are the words that Anousheh Ansari had made into a badge for her spacesuit as she became the first Iranian woman to fly into space! They are also the principles that led her to become a successful, sustainable CEO. Anousheh and Ilham have a fascinating conversation about the importance of having big dreams and reaching for the stars, why we need more women in STEM, and what it takes to become a sustainable entrepreneur and leader, and much more. 

Timstamps
1:29 - Childhood, love of stars and inspiration for going to space
6:06 - The importance of education - leading to engineering degree
9:45 - First Iranian Muslim woman to fly to space!
14:46 - Why we need to democratize space travel
20:13 - CEO of XPRIZE
23:52 - Advice for entrepreneurs
27:14 - The importance of having more women in STEM
30:51 - Imagine, be the change, inspire

Anousheh Ansari is an engineer, a highly successful entrepreneur, and the first Iranian and Muslim woman and the first private explorer to travel to space. She is the CEO of the XPRIZE, which aims to accelerate technological breakthroughs that will benefit humanity through the power of large scale public competitions. 

Ansari and her family sponsored XPRIZE’s first venture in 1994: the $10 million Ansari XPRIZE that ignited a new era for commercial spaceflight. She began serving on its Board of Directors and became CEO of XPRIZE in 2018, leading and scaling the foundation to its highest impact period in its history. To date, XPRIZE has launched 30 prizes offering over $500 million in prize purses, hosting over 35,000 innovators from around the world to participate in its competitions.

She is a global presence in future-positive tech markets and a resonant voice for women within STEM, business, and the entrepreneurial industries. 

For additional details about the podcast, show notes, and access to resources mentioned during the show, please visit https://www.syensqo.com/en/podcast

Transcript

Ilham Kadri: Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the AND is the Future podcast. Today, I have the honor of speaking to Anousheh Ansari. And gosh, I'm not sure where to begin. Anousheh is truly one of the most inspiring, female figures I have had the pleasure of meeting and the honor of knowing.

She's an engineer, a highly successful entrepreneur, and the first ever Iranian and Muslim woman to travel to space. Anousheh today is the CEO of the XPRIZE Foundation, a non profit organization that aims to accelerate technological breakthroughs that will benefit humanity through the power of large scale public competitions.

I can't wait to hear more about her exciting life and career. Anousheh, thank you. Thank you so much for being here.

Anousheh Ansari: Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you Ilham. 

Childhood, love of stars and inspiration for going to space

Ilham Kadri: I always start with asking what motivates our people, our podcasters. I know you were born in the beautiful town of Mashhad in Iran, and you experienced the Islamic revolution when you were only 12. And what stands out to me when we spoke a year ago, the story I heard you tell about how your journey to space started with curiosity.

And this is one thing we discuss a lot within my organization. I know it's very popular in this podcast. You talked to me about how, as a little girl, you used to sleep on your grandparents balcony under the stars and wondered what was happening up there. And I also watched your great TED talk where you talked about how the Little Prince, which is very close to our heart, Saint Exupéry and the Francophones we are, sparked your imagination. So can you talk about these childhood experiences and how curiosity, imagination spurred you to become the first ever Iranian and Muslim woman to go to space?

Anousheh Ansari: Yes, as you mentioned,  my love of space, love of stars actually started with being able to lay on my back at night as a child and look at the night skies to look at the starry night skies and really let my imagination go wild to look up there and what I was thinking is first is like what are those little shiny objects out there and are they other, are there other beings out there? Is there another civilization out there? What's happening? Or do they look like us? So, question after question, you know cycled in my mind. And, every night, every opportunity I had to look up at the night skies, these questions sort of lingered on. And the more curious I was, the more I wanted to learn.

It got me started in science. And later on in astronomy and just trying to understand things, was a big part of my childhood.  I was very curious and I kept asking why, why, why. I'm sure I drove my mom crazy by asking all those questions, but being able to learn about things was part of learning about myself and my role in the world and my place in the world.

And as children, especially in our part of the world, you're growing up, we didn't have iPads and iPhones and a lot of simulations. So we created our own. playground and it came from our imagination. So we really exercise this muscle of imagination, this gift we have, which is very unique to us as human beings.

And, I think if you look back in history, everything we've created,  started with us imagining something, imagining a future that was different, imagining something that worked differently, or imagining a brand new thing. And after starting in our mind, some of us slowly, slowly started creating those things we imagine in our heads.

So ever since I was a child, imagination, curiosity, which goes hand in hand, played a big role in my life and how it was shaped. I became very interested in science fiction. I read The Little Prince and, at the beginning it talks about how as a child, he was frustrated with the adults because they couldn't see this beautiful elephant.

So, I think this is part of us being able to look at things differently and with our imagination we can see through a different lens. I didn't see all the reasons why going to space was a crazy idea for a young girl in Iran growing up in Iran. I continue to just imagine that I am an astronaut. I'm actually going to Starfleet Academy and I imagine I'll be an officer on board Starship Enterprise. So, these things help drive you and make decisions in your life that hopefully at some point it sort of gets you closer to those dreams. Of course, there was no Starfleet Academy or a Starship Enterprise for me to join them. But,  nevertheless, you substitute that with what's possible, but still in line with what you imagine your life to be. And it has shaped who I am. It has shaped my pathways to engineering and to space.

The importance of education - leading to engineering degree

Ilham Kadri: Fabulous. And I love to start the journey with that little girl with imagination and curiosity and the head and probably the soul in the stars. By the way, you wrote a wonderful memoir with the beautiful title, My Dream of Stars. And one of my favorite parts is when you shared how your grandmother and mother inspired you to defy societal expectation, and take control of your own life. I think it's your grandmother who told you to be the master of your own life. And  this really resonated with me and this is how we started, or we pursued our talk a year ago, because growing up in Morocco, I faced probably the same societal or practical challenges, and there was a saying, a woman only has two exits, one to her husband's house and the last one and the second one to the grave. And like you, I also had an incredibly inspiring grandmother and she didn't believe this and always encouraged me to find that third exit, which was, in my case, education. And I'm sure the same for you. Something you mentioned was really important to you as well. Help our audience by telling us how your grandma inspired you and your mother as well, and how come you ended up studying electronics and computer engineering.

Anousheh Ansari:  So my grandmother got married very young. I think she was, I don't know, 13, 14 years old, so very young, arranged marriage. She, I think throughout her life, she felt that she didn't have control of doing anything. She didn't finish school. My grandfather was much older.  so I always remember she said that she had no idea what was happening. She went actually with a trunk, with all her dolls and everything, on her wedding date. So I think that shaped a lot what she was asking me to do to not give up control of my life. And, my mom, she actually worked. And, so I saw a working woman, and someone who had struggled, but had more control over her destiny.

And, both of them were figures in my life who continuously pushed me to study because they all believed that education is my passage to becoming independent. And that's why they emphasize studying, studying, studying, so I can get a job, work for myself. So they encourage me to always work and be financially independent, because financial independence for women is a big part of being able to make their own decisions in their life.

I came to the United States originally thinking that I'm going to study astrophysics, which is my favorite subject. But, we didn't have any money. My mom and I, my sister, came to the United States with very little and we had to start life over. So, I was looking at the cross section of something that I would enjoy doing,  but that also gives me an opportunity to get a job and build a career fast. So, I figured I can study astrophysics, not as a major,  but to get a degree that can help me to get into the job market faster. And that's why I chose electrical engineering that's the field that was growing really fast and there were lots of opportunity and it looks like I made the right decision.

First Iranian Muslim woman to fly to space!

Ilham Kadri: Definitely, because it's opened up all avenues, right, to still live the dreams you had as a little girl. I'm really excited.  to hear more about your flight into space, and I'm proud to say that you are actually the third person to come on this podcast who has been to space.

We had an episode with Doug Hurley, a former NASA astronaut, Helen Sharman, who is the first British person to go to space. And I had to ask both of them this question. And I will ask you too, because there are still so few people who can describe this feeling and it's unknown to us. People who have been down to earth and stick to the earth. How did going to space change your perspective?

Anousheh Ansari:  As you said, it is a hard thing to put two words that truly describes the emotions, but, it is an emotional experience, first of all. So I flew on the Russian Soyuz to International Space Station. So the first time I saw Earth from space was actually in the capsule. I had not made it to the space station yet. And it was after probably 20 minutes, 25 minutes into the flight when we were able to open up our seatbelts and I floated to the porthole that was next to my seat. And I looked out the porthole and I felt this surge of energy and warmth that came from Earth. It felt alive to me. And scientifically, I know I was inside the capsule. I wasn't feeling any heat or anything, but it was an emotional experience of just, it looked so alive in the background of this dark skies that surrounded it, and it looked unique and beautiful.

From that moment on, and I had other opportunities, of course, every day,  to spend hours, watching Earth just go by, just rotating and going from sunrise to sunset every 90 minutes when I was on space station. And, during this time, you imagine that all those things you studied, the maps you studied in geography courses that showed us as separate nations, as these dividing lines between us. It's not there. It's, you can hardly tell what country you're looking at let alone any cities.

And it's just maybe some areas where they have just the shape of the land has special shapes. So you can tell, like, Italy is a very distinct sort of shape that you can't tell where you are, but otherwise you can't really tell, and then you see this movement of the weather systems and the clouds and everything, and you realize that we go on in our lives, imagining that we are living in the geography maps that we see in the geography classes and imagine that we are separated and that things can't if there's a problem on the other side of the border or on the other side of the planet, that it won't affect us, but we're part of an ecosystem of this planet that is very integral to our well being and the fact that we can live on this planet. And we're dependent on this ecosystem and this planet and we are dependent on each other. I mean, we're interconnected.

I loved when we were away from the reflection of the sun. So I could see the night skies and billions and billions of stars. And when you see that, of course we know this, but when you see it with your own eyes, you understand we take things too seriously sometimes and it humbles you at the same time being able to see these two contrasts, looking at the universe, looking at our earth, you realize you're just, Looking at the big picture, and for me, this was a lesson that I took on as an into my life. I realized that we spend 80 percent of our energy and brain power and everything on what I call the noise of life. Things that at the end of the day doesn't matter,  but if we focus on the big picture, then we will be more satisfied. We will be happier with what we do and what we do matters more. So Get rid of the noise of life as much as I can. First recognize it, then get rid of it, and then focus on the big picture,  and what's important for me in my life.

Why we need to democratize space travel 

Ilham Kadri: Wow, yeah, a lot of lessons. And I think I read somewhere where you say that if world leaders would be sent into space, their policies would look much different. And what's so amazing, Anousheh, about your journey to space is that it was self funded, and you have often spoken about making space exploration accessible to ordinary citizens. So can you explain to our audience why are you such a strong advocate for democratizing space travel?

Anousheh Ansari: I love actually explaining this because for most people, when you talk about space, people think, especially these days, they say it's a place for rich people to go have fun. No, it's completely total opposite, and my love of space is, of course, and space exploration is for gaining knowledge on one hand, but on the other hand, I think the knowledge we gain will help us here on our planet, so, I came from the world of telecom, where I built a lot of my companies, and, I saw how internet,  and when internet became accessible to everyone, really opened up this new opportunity for innovation and creativity.

And the world we live in, if you ask someone 25 years ago, they couldn't really describe what's going to happen. But now we see how it has really shaped and changed our lives. So to me, space is where we live. We are in space and the space around us contains so much opportunities for learning, opportunities for resources. that we can use to make our lives better on earth. But for over 50 years, only governments were launching, and creating access to space.

And it was only a few people,  even to date, out of the 8 billion people on this planet, only about maybe,  680, 690 people have flown to space.  So, to me, the reason for that was, Because government controlled access to space, the cost of space and the amount of innovation in this area was very low.

So, what I saw in internet is the private sector had a big hand in really what was created using the internet and bringing the cost down actually. I remember when I came to the United States when I wanted to call home it was like four dollars a minute. Now it's free. So, I think innovation and the private sector can drive accessibility and bring the cost down so more people can benefit from technology. So to me, space was in the same realm. If we could bring the cost of access to space, which was preventing from a lot of opportunities to be built in space, then those opportunities will open up. And, the prize was focused on that. It was to create a reusable method of access to space. It was to the edge of space, but that was like the first step to really invigorate innovation and entrepreneurship to build more. And, the most important part of the prize was not only demonstrated that it's possible that a small team can build a spaceship and actually go to space, but that it can be done at a fraction of the cost. And during, it took 10 years for the prize to be won.

And we were able to change policy, work with the policy makers and help develop the policies that has made the commercial space viable right now. And, the price when we launched the competition was around $25,000 for one kilogram to be flown to space. Today it is $2,500 per kilogram and soon with the new  Starship, when it's fully operational and, and at scale, that cost could come down to $250 per kilogram in the next five years or even less. So that changes the dynamic of what's possible in space. And we are doing our electrification right now and greening of all the industries. We are having problems with having enough rare earth metals or other resources that helps us on that transition. We can really access these resources in space. We can put some of our polluting industries in orbit because now it's possible and the other technologies have advanced as well. So, to me, it's exploring for the sake of knowledge I think it's important for us, but also exploring to see how this space around us can make life more sustainable and better for all of our citizens here on earth. And,  of course, the experience when someone, a person can fly, it's extraordinary and I think it changes people for the better. So that would be an added bonus. It would be the cherry on top.

CEO of XPRIZE Foundation

Ilham Kadri: No, it's amazing, Anousheh I would like to talk about your current position as a CEO with the XPRIZE Foundation. I discovered that this foundation probably 15 years ago, 10 years ago, right, when I was, when I used to live in the U. S. and, and met a few people around this uniqueness, your crowd source groundbreaking solutions for the world's most urgent challenges. True competition, and you open it to everybody around the world. Can you tell us more about this competition, and what areas do you focus on? What are the critical challenges you want to solve? 

Anousheh Ansari: Becoming the CEO of XPRIZE was part of me focusing on big picture things. So that's what we do at XPRIZE. And, we operate in seven domains. Climate and energy is one of our big areas of focus right now. We have a 100 million carbon extraction competition, which is to take carbon out of the atmosphere or the oceans at gigaton level because we need to scale up technologies to gigaton in order to meet our goals for 2050 of 10 gigaton per year so that's an exciting one. We also do work in biodiversity and conservation where we have an active rainforest competition to identify the biodiversity of the rainforest and preserve it.

We have a wildfire competition. As one of the aftermaths of global warming is,  wildfires are all over the place now. And,  this competition will be to identify fires,  before they become wildfires and from space assets or ground-based assets and put them out within 10 minutes. So we're halfway in that competition and excited about the results because it could save lives.  The other area of work for us is food, water, waste, and  looking at circular economies in this area, and we have a alternative protein for white meat Our largest prize ever, and I think it's the largest prize in in the history of humanity is 119 million water scarcity, which is focused on,  scaling up desalination of seawater.

Our planet is covered with lots of oceans, but they're not accessible for our consumption. So scaling our water desalination, reducing the cost so it becomes affordable and building a more resilient system is part of this competition.

We of course have our Learning and Society, which is focused on education and societal issues. Space and Exploration is an area of activity for us where we're working on hopefully launching a space debris removal competition soon. Another important area is health. We have a hundred million dollar competition in increasing the healthy lifespan of three systems in the human body: cognitive, muscle, and immune system. And last but not least is our Deep Tech and Quantum where we just announced our Quantum for Good competition sponsored by Google which is to build algorithms for quantum computers that are uniquely suitable and better than classical computers these algorithms would focus on problems that are big problems for humanity

Advice for entrepreneurs

Ilham Kadri: Wow! And so many incredible projects, right? You are driving and leading through the XPRIZE. And as  Anousheh, this podcast is also about how we can build companies that are both sustainable and profitable to allow them to last and thrive and generally doing good in the world. And since you are such a successful entrepreneur, a scientist, you started your own successful tech company before you became involved in XPRIZE, went to space, came back, did fabulous. I mean, and we are just scratching the surface because there are so many things you've initiated. What advice would you give to young and not so young leaders who are listening to us who want to be sustainable leaders and sustainable successful leaders.

Anousheh Ansari: It goes back to the heart of  why people become entrepreneurs. It's not easy to start companies.  so if you started with, for the wrong reasons, then you're not going to be able to sustain it and work through all the problems that startups face and all the ups and downs and the challenges that is thrown your way, because anytime you're building something new, you're, creating something new,  there's lots of unknowns and risk involved.

So, you have to be prepared as an entrepreneur for the unknown and risk and the challenges and the changes that you will face. And there's no way that you can ask an entrepreneur that I say they set a plan and they created a plan and they just followed the plan to success. It doesn't work that way.

It's very dynamic and our world is changing constantly. What makes successful entrepreneurs successful is they have to have a passion for what they're doing. They have to believe in what they're building and what they're building if it has a purpose, it's solving something that's either personal to them. A lot of successful entrepreneurs, when you hear about them, it's like my mother had this issue or my child had this issue or my brother had this issue So, it's about helping someone or something and building something in the service of something else.

Something bigger. So, I think those are the successful entrepreneurs. And, it gives you the energy and, and the mental power and capacity to work through tough problems and tough times.  So one advice for the entrepreneurs, never do a business for profits and money. If money is your motivation, you will very quickly lose that sense of adventure and drive and grit that you need to be successful.

Make sure whatever you're doing and building is meaningful to you. And,  Sustainability is built into having a successful business. So, finding those opportunities where you can,  create value for someone and that value will drive them to want to purchase and deploy your solution or service or product wherever you are.

So it's about value creation.  If there is truly no value in what you're building, it will be short lived and it won't be sustainable. So, I do believe that you can do good in the world and build a great business.

The importance of having more women in STEM

Ilham Kadri: It's amazing.  And yeah, you are pointing us a lot to the meaning and the purpose, right? When you drive a journey and I think it's a great wisdom to our young listeners and young leaders.  and speaking of young leaders, you are an incredible role model of young girls and women. Actually, not only girls, because when I told my son he's 18 years old that I'm gonna podcast you, he was like all over the map, right? But for the girls, especially those who want to have careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, we obviously need more women in these fields. And you rightly said, Anousheh, that recently there are too few women shaping the future of the tech industry. Can you elaborate on this and how do you think we can and we should create an environment where more girls and women can thrive in the STEM field?

Anousheh Ansari: It's a great question. Also, something that's very near and dear to my heart.  Having built tech companies and being in the tech sector, this is a big problem, not having enough diverse voices around the design table will create a world that it will not work well for us. So,  there is a saying that,  if you're not,  if you don't have a seat at the table, you're on the menu.

And,  this is what's happening if we don't have diverse voices, if we don't have women,  in these companies,   or as entrepreneurs building products, solutions that has a holistic approach to building these and designing these services and products, then they will not work well for us.

And we've seen this throughout history, example after example, whether it was the seatbelts and not being not protecting women with our size and weight of the body or in the medical industry, women not included in clinical trials and therefore a lot of drugs don't work for us.

When we talk to Siri or Alexa, women have more difficulty to be understood because the system, especially in early days, was not trained for women's voices and, and intonation. So, I can go on and on and on about examples. But, when you look at our future, our future will be driven by technology. And if we don't have women,  as part of this, that means the future will not work for us. So,  I think it's critical for us to find ways to get more young girls and women interested. But also important enough, there are a lot of amazing women and young girls and students out there. We need to make sure we attract them to the businesses that we're building and make sure that we have a voice at the table.

So, I think we just need to change that dynamic.  it's an issue that if we don't solve, it will create even bigger problems for us. So having role models to help, I know you're an amazing role model for young leaders, especially young women. So, getting the stories out there, so women can see themselves in those positions, in those roles, in those jobs. It's important to just make sure those stories, those images, those opportunities are present for everyone to see in media, in other ways to see that, yes, it is possible for me. These are all career opportunities for me.

Imagine, be the change, inspire

Ilham Kadri: Wow. What an inspiration. A voice at the table. And I'd like to close, and I would continue this conversation longer. I'd like to close by asking you to explain the badge you wore into space, because I thought it was so inspirational. Can you share with our listener what it said?

Anousheh Ansari: Yes, so I designed this badge and I put all the things that were meaningful to me. So I love infinity. So I had a figurine that had her arms was in the shape of infinity to demonstrate infinite possibilities.  And on top of the figurine, there were,  imagine, be the change and inspire. 

And to me, it was the three phases of my life, starting with imagination, which got everything started for me. And, I think it should be sort of a starter for everyone to imagine the life they want to build for themselves, the world they want to live in. 

And then the next part is after you imagine it, you have to go actually build it now. So I took a part of Gandhi's famous quote of, be the change you want to see in the world. So when you want to change something you have to start with yourself. You have to take the steps toward that change as well. So, my “be the change” in my life has been the companies I built, the sponsorship of XPRIZE, the first competition and the work I'm doing there right now.

So, every day in my everyday life and in my work I try to take steps toward those changes I wanna see in the world. And the last part is when you've done a lot in your life, you have to inspire the next generation. So, I spend a lot of time traveling, speaking especially to young students, around the world, from kindergarten all the way to graduates.

I think it's really important for students and to other women leadership groups, because I think, as I said, sharing our stories helps people through their own struggles and, and the lessons they learn.

Ilham Kadri: Yeah, well, thank you. And I can't think of a better note to end this podcast. Thank you so much for giving us some of your time and being here, Anousheh. I feel you are a soul sister in many, many ways. You are an inspiration. Your bold determination, you've broken so many barriers, including the earthly ones. And I think when you say to those little girls, if they're in Saharan, in Mumbai, in Casablanca, or here in Brussels, or in Atlanta, you are telling them, yeah, be bold, imaginative and curious. And thank you for showing us the value of being curious and imaginative and reaching for the stars. Thank you, Anousheh.

Anousheh Ansari: Thank you, Ilham.