Bijal Hayes-Thakore and Tejal Thakore are Inspiring Women Toward Leadership in the Space Industry

Bijal (Bee) Hayes-Thakore and Tejal (Tee) Thakore are sisters born in India who were seemingly hard-wired from a tender age to lead. And, lead is what they are doing now, but, in a field that involves an engineering mind and a love of the stars. The space industry has pulled these young ladies toward developing their talents to the point of industry-influencing accomplishments and a desire to motivate other women in STEM. Joined by the Chief Operations Officer of The Space Foundation, Shelli Brunswick, Mary Kurek, Frontrunners Innovate Producer and Host talks with the Thakore sisters about their unique stories and how they are making their innovation mark in space tech.

Meet Bee Hayes-Thakore and Tee Thakore. (60-minute video) Note: This interview is packed with information and resources perfect for anyone looking to get started in the space industry. (Links to resources are shared in the bio and contact information below.)

Tee’s Short Bio with Links:

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Bee’s Short Bio:

Bee Hayes-Thakore is Senior Director of marketing and partnerships at Kigen for collaborative business initiatives that bring security for trillions of connected things with pioneering eSIM and iSIM technologies. In turn, this is helping businesses use digital transformation and data to think differently about the possibilities of tomorrow.

Prior to Kigen, Bee brings a mix of entrepreneurial and corporate experience scaling products from concept to commercial success for companies such as Arm, micro: bit, Raspberry Pi, Facebook, NASA, LEGO, AIRBUS, X PRIZE, and Shell. As a marketer with a cross-sector engineering background, Bee holds two patents along with deep expertise in communications on emerging technology.

She has a continued interest in connected social impact start-ups using technology to bring global change as Trustee of Jangala Communications, Board member for The Planetary Society (world’s largest space advocacy and citizen science organization), and advisor at Arm Holdings’ Vision 2030 sustainability program. Bee was recognized for her work as IET and WES engineer of the year 2008, MT and Sunday Times 35 under 35, and UK’s Top 5 IoT Technologies of 2016-18.

Bee holds a Master of Aerospace Engineering from the University of Bath and a Master in Management from International Space University.

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