Tony Zhou
At the intersection of ideas and action, this is Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you.

Hi everyone! My name is Tony Zhou, and I am a Longitude Fellow from Yale University. Today, I have the pleasure of presenting this sound byte by Naeem Altaf. Naeem is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Technology Officer of IBM Space Tech and IBM Cloud. In our first episode of the Edge of Space series, Naeem and I discuss his goal of democratizing and increasing accessibility to space, lifelong learning, and adopting the mindset of a builder. We start our conversation with Naeem sharing the inception of the Endurance project.

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Naeem Altaf
We were looking at different projects to do for space tech, and one of the projects, which we can talk about later, was the edge computing within the International Space Station for DNA sequencing. So while we were working on projects, I wanted to always look for the angle tech for good. Something we can give back to the society in healthcare and for future generations, and basically inspire our next generation. So I was looking around, okay, now, what can be really cool stuff where the people can relate to what’s happening on the ground? Because right now, from the technology point of view, you probably hear a lot about 5G networks, edge computing, everybody’s probably familiar with Tesla’s autonomous cars, the future of EV, and all that stuff, right? So we were like, okay now, that’s all edge computing. Let’s take edge computing to the next level, how can we do edge computing in space? And that’s where the DNA sequencing or space station product happened. But on the other side, you’re like, okay, it will be really cool if we launch the first mission, from IBM’s point of view in space, totally nonprofit, and we can open the access to every kid in the world, everybody.

The thing is, my background is computer science. So I’m not an astrophysicist. Nothing to do with this aerospace industry. But you know, programming is everywhere. Everything you touch is a program. So it means that you can be relevant in in those industries as a programmer. So I was trying to understand, what does it take to launch this satellite. And there’s a very, very, very good guide book from NASA, if you just Google “NASA CubeSat 101.” It’s like a 100 page book, brilliant, it’s written in detail of A to Z, what are all the regulatory requirements, what it takes to get something to launch all this stuff, right? I went through that list, and I started talking to people in the industry. I was like, hmm, it’s not that easy. Technology is the easier part. The challenging part is all the logistics, all the approvals you need, all the paperwork you have to do, that is a lengthy process. And then, of course, the cost also to put stuff in the space. So if living in these modern countries in the Western world, if it’s so challenging here, imagine the developing nations, Africa and Asia and all these countries, how hard it will be for them. From there, we started this CubeSat mission. And we named it Endurance because of the times we are going through in the past couple of years with this pandemic. So let’s go and work together, put a CubeSat in space, and then we open it to everyone. And that’s where it came all from together.

CubeSat is made up of several basic components, like antennas for communications, then you have the solar panels so you can gain power. And then you have computers, because you have to run stuff inside. And then you have a bunch of other sensors like Magneto meter, Sun sensors, larger sensors. And then one very common sensor which most of these satellites have is a camera. The majority of these satellites are in the low Earth orbit. The low Earth orbit is around 1000 kilometer, it’s a range between 500 to 1000 kilometers. So most of these satellites, they are designed to look at the Earth and do observation for multiple purposes, like the climate stuff, and the glaciers, the deforestation, all those things. And then you have now Starlink, and that’s also to provide the communications because the network latency is low. So yes, we have a bunch of sensors over there.

And the way it will work is you will have a portal up on IBM’s cloud. So if I am a kid sitting anywhere in the world, I just go on the site. And we will give you the specs, how to write your Python code. It will be Python language, a relatively very easy language, and others. So you write your code and hit submit, and we will take your piece of code, test it out and then push it to the ground station and the ground station will beam up to the CubeSat. So now your code which you wrote is actually on the CubeSat running there. And our CubeSat will be using Raspberry Pi four as a compute platform. So your code will run there. It will interact with different sensors, which will tell you that you can take a picture, and then the results will come back and will be available to you. I think that’s very uplifting and, you know, that’s really cool stuff, right? You can do something sitting in those remote areas and push report this fast.

Tony
I mean, I definitely was not thinking about doing stuff like this as a kid. It’s really cool to hear about it. Were you always interested in space? Because you mentioned your computer science background, so when you did immerse yourself in this, how did you assemble either a team or mentors or peers around you to help you with this idea?

Naeem
I think space is something which fascinates many, many people around the world. It has always been fascinating to look at the skies at night and see all these planets. But again, the opportunities are limited, because it’s very challenging. It costs a lot to be a part of this industry, to do something.

Five years ago, I got an opportunity to work with NASA Frontier Development Lab program. It’s run by SETI Institute. Basically it’s like an incubation lab where they come up with- they define these five or six different tough problems, which NASA scientists give to them. And then they get people from all over the world, from the prestigious universities like Oxford, and these different colleges, to solve this problem. So I got the opportunity to work with them as an IBM sponsor, as a mentor with them. And they all were astrophysicists, PhDs, and this and that. I’m like, you know what, there is room for computer scientists also here. So I might not be able to create those very sophisticated algorithms. But to run those algorithms, you need all that programming behind it to do that, so you can have a very sharp mathematician or physicist, right, who is building all this job, then you can take that and create simulations. And that’s where the programmer comes in the picture. And if you have interest, while you’re working with them you will start learning how they do it, what they are doing, right. So the thing is, you have to reinvent yourself, because every six months there is a new technology, there’s so much happening in the world, right? So if you’re curious, if you want to learn more, you have to keep on reinventing. So don’t think that today I- let’s say I graduated with XYZ degree, and I joined this company, that you will be there, you will build that stuff, right. If you’re curious and if you have a bigger picture of what is happening in the industry, you will keep on reinnovating yourself and learning. The basic element is learning. That’s it. Don’t bound yourself to what degree you got. I mean, if you’ve got that degree, it means that you have the ability to learn, right? You can learn more things, you don’t have to just stick with one thing, right?

Tony
You mentioned how the fundamental thing, or the thing that connects you to everything, is being able to program. I totally agree how one should be very flexible and always be willing to change. But at the same time, would you agree that you also need to have a foundational core set of skills that then allows you to pivot anywhere?

Naeem
Definitely. You need to have the skills. I mean, first of all, you have to have an attitude of a builder. You need to have that attitude that I’m an inventor, I’m a builder, and not a consumer. The majority of the world today is consumer, with the phones, right? Those are consumers. So if you are a consumer, you as an individual, as a society, as a nation, you will never be able to go up because you’re just waiting for somebody to feed you something. And you just use them. Look at all the previous nations, the only nations who went up and who have their golden period, right? Because they were inventors. They were inventing new things. And then once you leave that, then you just go down the cycle. And now there are other nations that pick us up. Obviously you see the U.S. did for the last 70-80 years. And now you see China taking the lead in that way, right? And that’s all because they are producing researchers, they have people who can build things. You have to have that core skill of building something. Once you have that core skill, the sky is the limit, you can do whatever you want. And all future is programming in any industry you go. But there’s basic programming, then there is vertical, high skilled areas, right. So AI is a skilled area. So you build your three to five years of strong foundation of programming, as a programmer. Now you see the work: I like AI, VR AR stuff, I want to go into gaming industry, or I want to go into aerospace and work on their simulation, or I want to go into biotech. You can now go whatever you like in the industry vertical. Now you can go there. Because you have the skill to build and you have an interest. So now both things will come together. Your skill and your interest, and now the job will be fun.

Tony
Yeah, these are very research-intensive fields that you’ve just mentioned. Do you think students need advanced degrees such as like PhDs to be impactful and to contribute?

Naeem
It depends what your what your goal is. A PhD is always good. I mean, if you have to go and do really deep, groundbreaking, breakthrough stuff, the more knowledge, the more education you have, it will help you. But that also means a lot of commitment. So you need to know yourself. For example, when I went to UT Austin, I exactly knew that I wanted a computer science degree, and I’m going to graduate in this semester, two and a half years from now. I did not waver in the middle. You see a lot of students, you probably notice that they start, then do this and this and this, right? Okay, now you’re just wasting time and money. The most important thing you’re wasting is time. Time is the most crucial thing, especially 20s-30s. This is the most critical time of your life, these 10 years.

The thing is, we live in a very privileged society. If you have traveled outside the U.S., back in the east, you see how challenging the life is over there. So that’s why I tell my kids too, if you live in this privileged society where you have everything, never have to think about water, electricity, right? I mean, if the people in the East- they have an excuse, because they have so many challenges which you can’t even think of, every single day. Right? So for them, struggle, you know, you can explain that. But over here, where everything is just sitting there, everything for you, you just click a button, and Amazon drops a box in 24 hours, right? If everything is in your hand and you still can’t achieve something, it’s a shame.

Tony
I read this book by Dr. Kai-Fu Lee on powers. And there’s a section in his book where he mentions how when he went back to China to speak, to give lectures, they would be packed. And then when he would walk the halls, you know, because of the little amount of resources he saw around the school- I think there was a curfew around nine or 10- the lights would go off, and then the students would go outside and use the streetlight to study. And that’s something you don’t hear of in the Western world, because we are so privileged with the resources that we have.

Naeem
So yeah, I think that that’s it. I mean,it comes from inside, right, that if you from very early age, or even in this age, you develop that, “I am going to be a builder, I’m going to go and build things,” then your whole attitude will change, because then you are in this ever-learning mode, till the time you go away from this world. That’s the purpose, is to keep learning everyday. If you stop learning, you will stop. And not everybody has that willpower. But if you have those, then you will do great things.

Tony
Right. You’ve mentioned topics like machine learning, AI, which will eventually make a huge impact in our society. But what about quantum technology and how that in itself [will impact society]?

Naeem
Quantum is a monster. It’s just waiting to be unleashed. Again, the thing is, technology is not bad. It becomes interesting in whose hands it goes into. That’s the thing, right? AI is not bad. But if it’s in wrong hands, then yes, it is bad. The thing which fascinates me is, think about all the innovation they are doing today, in terms of computing, storage, networks. Where are these being used for? The majority of that is being used for all the wrong stuff, social media and all the other things. Think about it, you’re creating these gigantic data centers, and what do they have? Billions of videos and pictures, and it’s like, really? So we build all this innovation for this kind of stuff, right?

Quantum is probably 10 years away. There is a lot of hype in the industry and commercial companies will do that, but it’s still far away. If you are a smart programmer and you love programming, you need to start with quantum computing right now. Right now. IBM has this quantum freely available to the public, you can just log on to IBM, type IBM quantum and Google search it, you will be able to get your account and you can start programming in Python. It’s a great start. Do that, and in the next five years you will be so much farther ahead than anybody else because quantum is going to happen. It will happen.

Tony
So going back to the endurance project that you’re currently working on, what is something that has been the most unexpected to you?

Naeem
You mean in this particular project or just in general in space?

Tony
Sure, just space stuff. Are there things that you didn’t expect to happen that either surprised you in a positive way or in a negative way?

Naeem
So when we are working as a computer scientist in this tech industry, things move very, very fast. I mean, you see how fast technology moves and stuff is happening and all this. But when we talk about space, for good reasons, things don’t move that fast. Because one failure in launch, your company’s done. It is bankrupt. They’re gone. I didn’t expect it because this is not my background, aerospace. I hope that things move a little bit faster, but they don’t. And I learned why they don’t. There is like… We invent something and then we say, you know what, this is it. You have to keep on pushing. There’s more you can do with that. So yes, I think there are challenges like that in this industry, but it’s changing rapidly now. It’s changed quite a bit, we have to do things faster. So yes, I think it was mostly the speed, and I will say the logistics, like how much paperwork, everything you have to do. Those are a few things, but things are opening up now.

Tony
It seems like space industry is becoming more and more competitive. Now things are getting faster because the cost to make certain resources has decreased. But also it just seems like still have that youthful exuberance and that energy, just hearing you talk. So when do you take time to just relax a little, but also at the same time let your mind wander so that you can come up with new ideas, and how do you do that?

Naeem
One thing is, from a very early age I always wanted to understand the big picture. Always. How does it work from A to Z? Because most of the time, what happens in programming is they say, you know what 20 year old programmer, go and work on this component. You will work on that component for five years, and you have no clue what it does for the whole thing. You’re just happy that what you compiled works.

Tony
I know.

Naeem
I want to know everything and what fits where. What’s the whole platform, what is the whole thing? As you grow older, you learn more and more stuff and you’re like, you know, I could have done that in my life. But then I also believe you can do things anytime in your life. Anytime, because it’s constantly learning. So the other area which I always love now is political science, because political science is a very interesting subject. First of all, it’s tied to the history, to the culture, right? It’s not only politics. You learn everything, and then you see what’s happening in the world, why these things are happening in a certain way. That’s what political science gives you. Once you have a bigger picture, then things start making sense. So that’s what I like. I try to see the bigger picture. And whenever I’m free, I’m reading books and trying to read about history and always keeping an eye on the political side of the world, what’s happening, because that helps you a lot in understanding.

Tony
Okay, yeah. So you just kind of attend to your hobbies and let your mind- okay.

Naeem
The bottom line is learning new things. That’s it.

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Tony
The Edge of Space series serves as an opportunity for its listeners to learn more about the exciting innovations in space. In part one of this two-part interview, we heard how much Naeem emphasized lifelong learning. After building a strong foundation in computer science, Naeem aimed to create impact in the space industry. I hope our listeners find inspiration from hearing his journey from humble beginnings to space tech expert. For me, his journey is an uplifting example of what is possible when imagination, planning, and willpower are aligned and appropriately executed.

We hope you enjoyed today’s segment. Please feel free to share your thoughts over social media and in the comments, or write to us at podcast@longitude.site. We would love to hear from you.

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