With Richard Branson having just announced that Virgin Galactic is planning to go public on the stock market by the end of the year, CEBIT Australia will host Virgin Galactic’s Commercial Director and employee number one, Stephen Attenborough, as one of their main headline speakers at their expo this year.
Virgin Galactic is hoping to acquire an injection of funds to take on Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin in the space race. It’s believed the company will list shares with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings, as part of a merger which will take a 49 per cent stake in Virgin Galactic for around $US800 million ($1.2 billion).
Stephen will be one of eight keynote speakers at the event to be held in Sydney from 29 – 31 October at CEBIT Australia 2019, Asia Pacific’s largest and longest running B2B technology exhibition and conference examining every aspect of business digitisation.
Attenborough leads commercial activities for Virgin Galactic, part of Branson’s Virgin Group, which is still on track to become the world’s first passenger-carrying commercial space line providing suborbital spaceflights to space tourists and suborbital launches for space science missions.
Having joined Virgin Galactic following a career in investment management in London, Attenborough now speaks regularly around the world about the importance of opening access to space for the benefit of life on Earth.
CEBIT Australia Chairperson, and former Facebook CEO ANZ, Stephen Scheeler, said Attenborough’s keynote speech will be one of the highlights of CEBIT Australia this year. “We’re thrilled to have Stephen as this year’s keynote speaker,” Scheeler said. “The story of how Virgin Galactic has created a new market for space exploration in the digital age is an extraordinary one.
“Stephen will be updating us on the merger plans, sharing the latest news from California, where the Virgin Galactic spacecraft is going through its final testing phase. He’ll also explain the impact new technologies have on businesses and focus on how to drive business innovation and growth through the right combination of innovative people and technology.”
Attenborough was invited by Branson to join Virgin Galactic as the company’s first full time employee in 2004 to put in place the commercial foundations of the business and to create a new market for private space travel. He now leads the company’s commercial activities including partnerships for the human spaceflight business.
This work has now attracted around 700 future astronauts from 60 countries along with $80million in deposits. Attenborough has also been responsible for work-streams investigating, and now building, the non -tourism applications for the new space vehicles, particularly science research and small satellite launch.
Stephen Attenborough will speak at CEBIT Australia 2019, taking place from 29 – 31 October, 2019. For more information visit www.cebit.com.au
