INWES made a significant presence at the 2023 Taiwan International Assembly of Space Science, Technology, and Industry (TASTI) held at the Nanyang Exhibition Center in Taipei City. This five-day event, organized by the Taiwan Space Agency, congregated experts across diverse space related institutions. A highlight was the unexpected appearance of President Tsai-Ing-Wen of Taiwan, emphasizing the criticality of international collaborations and outlining her country’s robust roadmap for advancing space sectors.
One important topic discussed was on the underrepresentation of female experts in the global space industry, particularly from STEM fields. Jung Sun Kim, Past President of INWES, addressed this at the STEM Education and Women Leadership in Space forum. The forum, organized by Ms. Neevy Van Laningham from the US State Department and moderated by Dr. Rajika Bhandari (South Asia International Education Network, USA), featured three speakers: Prof. Jung Sun Kim (INWES), Dr. Raji Rajagopalan (Director of the Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation, India), and Dr. Cynthia Liu (Taiwan Space Agency). Each speaker presented data on the status of women in STEM globally, spotlighting insights from Korea, India, and Taiwan.
An urgent need for robust data to measure the current status of gender imbalance within human resources emerged from discussions. The conclusion stressed the imperative of developing measurement tools for comprehensive data compilation, pivotal for effective policy formulation and implementation. This assembly offered an excellent platform to present findings from the INWES/KWSE GISE project, sparking substantial interest among attendees for participation and collaboration. Prof. Anya Lin, President of TWiST, and Ms. ShunLien Sung, VP of INWES, attended the event and promoted TWiST.
