Blast off: First South Florida Space Day features aspiring astronauts and innovation

On a sunny Wednesday, various Nova Southeastern University students walking around in NASA astronaut space suits were the first sign the inaugural South Florida Space Day was afoot.

Broward County Mayor Michael Udine and several NSU officials and guests donned astronaut bomber jackets to plant a flag in NSU’s Alan B. Levan-NSU Broward Center of Innovation. Udine declared Oct. 12 South Florida Space Day, a milestone in the works for six years before launching.

Spanning 54,000 square feet on the fifth floor of the Alvin Sherman Library, Research, and Information Technology Center, the Levan Center of Innovation is a public-private partnership between NSU and Broward County.

The center has been billed as the world’s first “theme park for entrepreneurs” and places an emphasis on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. For Space Day, the festivities consisted of keynote speakers, a business expo and seminars focused on those three themes.

Citing the privatization and commercialization of the companies working on space technology, space is now referred to as a sector or destination rather than an industry, NSU Chief Innovation Officer John Wensveen said. He affirmed Space Day’s importance in connecting South Florida to international space business.

The university’s Space Dock program is the first space partnership program designed to assist space technology founders and entrepreneurs in every stage of business.

“The concept here is that with a slight pivot of their business, or creating new entrepreneurs to support these new space initiatives that didn’t exist, we can build that right here in our region, and then link that to the Florida Space Coast, national and international space systems,” Wensveen said.

One example of the businesses the Levan Center is cultivating is BiFarm Tech. BiFarm has begun developing technology that would enable food to grow in outer space.

In her remarks, keynote speaker and former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe spoke about the need for Space Day attendees to explore their space curiosity in a way that helps the South Florida community at large.

“I started to talk to some of the world’s leading experts and the things that were science fiction became science facts on a daily basis,” Bowe said. “So, as you participate today, I would like to challenge you to think about what it is that you are going to create and what it is that you’re going to contribute.”