As the industry liaison for space society, I believe that while financial backing from larger companies is important, genuine interaction and engagement from hard tech start-ups, SME's and a wider range of companies is also required as private companies really drive the UK space sector forward in terms of innovation and progress. As an active member of ICLR Rocketry, and networking with senior engineers at hackathons, I can say I understand how to talk to builders.
As space is an ever involving start-up driven industry our network should reflect that and so my strategy would be:
Hard-Tech Interview Series: Instead of presentations, I hope to schedule 1 to 1 live interviews and technical masterclasses with engineers and founders from UK Space Start-ups to provide in depth engineering insights.
Cross Discipline Integration: Space Engineering requires a variety of disciplines ranging from software, electronics and materials. I would offer industry events across different societies and bring diverse talent to expand our sponsorship reach.
Start-up Collaboration: Start-ups are often agile but recourse constrained. There is a strong industry goal to partner with students on different technical challenges. I will establish an industry bounty board where partnered SME's can post specific, low risk technical problems for members to solve for a collaboration opportunity helping students with an industry ready portfolio.