The Gemini Incubator is the realisation of a vision to create a global network of local startup ecosystems, made up of people who want to help create a more abundant future for the world. It is a global community — a movement — that has an after hours, 6-month program as a rite of passage.
At MoonshotX and with our partners, we are curating a collection of connected communities across the globe that each foster creative and productive individuals — whether you’re looking to start your own business, develop a useful piece of technology, conduct useful research, draft successful policy, or learn how to be a leader, rather than a manager.
On the surface, Gemini looks to be about a niche area of space technology entrepreneurship. While that is a significant component of our identity, Gemini is much, much more.
It takes a diverse range of individuals with different skills, insights and perspectives to foster creative and productive communities and ecosystems. If you’re a student, an academic researcher, or a manager at a technology related organisation anywhere from a small business to a large corporate, then you have a valued place in our community.
MoonshotX is about much more than what most people imagine when they think of space — it’s (mostly) not rocket science. Space is really about deep R&D with an aspirational story; it’s any emerging technology used to create an abundant future — artificial intelligence, drones, virtual reality, blockchain, digital biology; the list goes on.
In curating these communities, we certainly still need engineers and scientists, but we also need lawyers (ever heard of space law?), medical doctors (check out bioastronautics and space medicine), and economists — space technology is more about improving our lives through the use of new technologies and the insights they can provide us, than it is about pure research.
The skills we develop in members of our community apply to the three main kinds of participants we invite: the entrepreneur, the academic researcher, and the employee/manager.
Below we detail some of the main benefits of being a part of the Gemini Incubator.
Breadth
We host TED-syle talks about insightful and interesting topics, to give you a breadth of knowledge and exposure to little-known problems with regards to space and our future. We hope that you will become inspired through these talks by expert members of your communities, and will start to explore how to create valuable solutions.
Practicing the Art of Pitching and Negotiation
The first of these sessions as a part of Gemini 2 will be given by Dr Marc Jurblum, a medical doctor and psychiatrist in Melbourne, Australia who is an expert on bioastronautics and space medicine. If you’re in Melbourne on November 15, you can buy public tickets here, but we will be live streaming this (just as we will for the breadth talks of all of our 16 Gemini episodes) for our Gemini 2 participants and mentors all around the globe.
Lean Canvas and other business/project management tools
Whether you’re pitching to an investor for money, your academic department for research program support, or your superior to build a new product/service at your organisation — we get everyone to practice how to persuade others to come on board with your vision so that you can do what you need to do to solve problems.
We love popular project management tools and philosophies such as Lean and Design Thinking. The great part about these tools is that they aren’t only for building a company — they are fantastic for understanding the problems that people have and being able to quickly and cheaply develop valuable solutions.
You might use a Lean Canvas to help you map out a potential business model, or you can use it to help analyse how to create more engaging newsletters and marketing material for your company.
Problem Solving
Being an engineer, I can safely say that we are taught how to build solutions, but not how to understand the underlying problems. People in general are very quick to apply their existing knowledge and skills and to attempt to solve problems with what is in reality a narrow perspective and mindset — “when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.
We train you to engage with others to first deeply understand their problems, before you devote significant resources into what you believe will be a solution. Don’t make the mistake of the Segway or Google Glass.
Deeply understanding other people’s problems is a key attribute to develop as a leader, whether you are creating an augmented reality headset for firefighters using satellite wildfire analytics, or proposing to your IT manager that a new piece of software will, supposedly, make the jobs of a department’s employees easier.
Accountability and Community
Regardless of your aspirations and which kind of participant you are, Gemini mentors, alumni and your peers all keep you accountable for and contribute to your personal progress. We are careful not to over-quantify and track pointless metrics, but we do keep track and we will coach you as you progress through the Gemini Incubator.
Gemini is about building a community of highly productive individuals. Graduating from the Gemini Incubator is not an event to be taken lightly. It is a signal on your CV that you are and will always be a part of an elite global network of productive individuals and organisations. Your membership is initiated through a 6-month, 16 session program, but the community is the true value in being accepted and participating in Gemini.
Mentorship and Coaching
Being a part of the Gemini family means you have access to many mentors from all over the globe. Even at this early stage of Gemini, we have a great and diverse pool of mentors — and as it expands through graduating alumni who are ready to #giveback and #givefirst, the value of this network that you will have access to will continually increase.
As a new member of the Gemini Incubator, you will be introduced to many mentors from a wide range of different backgrounds. Each week you will meet with mentors, and also your peers, to discuss your progress and to engage with a new, experienced perspective.
Diversity
Diversity is the fuel for any productive community. Diversity of experience, ideas, academic training, the list is endless. We want to see our communities evolve with a good balance of gender, inclusive of younger students and older academic researchers, and a good range of academic backgrounds. We also strive to make our communities accessible regardless of geographical location and financial capacity. A monocultured community is counterproductive for our aspirations, and we want to actively work with you to ensure we achieve this.
After Gemini
Gemini is the first of a series of programs we are launching. The Gemini community is the foundation upon which we will continue to work with local communities to foster the growth of new deep-tech and space ecosystems in cities.
Once you have graduated from Gemini, you are a part of the Gemini community forever. You have had a taste of what it takes to understand and solve truly valuable problems. Perhaps that will be enough for you, but we hope you will aspire to go further and when you do, we will be there to help you through the Moonshot Accelerator and Moonshot Hyperdrive programs where we take you even further.
What Now?
If you’re an aspiring individual, whether you would like to found your own business, would like to be a valuable employee, or are an academic researcher and would like to see your years of research result in value for people around the world, then you need to apply for the Gemini 2 cohort today: http://moonshotspace.co/gemini
Troy McCann
During university, where he studied computer science and electrical engineering, Troy mixed his passions for technology and entrepreneurship through multiple engineering-heavy businesses. Using his experiences in commercialising deep research and the space industry, Troy began to develop a framework for supporting the growth of commercial solutions to humanity’s most difficult challenges while assembling a community around it, forming the basis for Moonshot.
Troy was ranked the 4th most influential new space business leader of the industry in the NewSpace People Global Ranking Report for 2019.