The TEDGlobal 2017: Builders, Truth Tellers, Catalysts conference experience in Arusha, Tanzania featured a workshop led by TED Fellow Renee Hlozek, Searching for our cosmic origins. There I met an interesting entrepreneur who had a dream of flying to outer space with his young son in order to see and perceive the world and our place in it in a new way from that vantage point – a burning curiosity of his, and an understandable one. It turned out that he had actually figured out a way to launch himself to space, just not a way to get back.​

We kept in touch and reconnected in Tokyo, sharing ideas along the way. At the same time, I had been working on accessing several plots of agricultural land while trying to think of ways to activate it, and the concept of an observatory emerged and piqued our interest. So I consulted with a few scientists and observatory directors to determine the feasibility, and others with common interests to imagine related possibilities.     ​

Together with entrepreneurs, technologists and community builders with a shared curiosity and fascination for our cosmic origins, we aim to establish an observatory that can contribute to scientific discovery while serving as a local hub and resource for youth, educational institutions, and innovators in neighboring cities. ​

Photo: Callie Giovanna / TED. Searching for our cosmic origins workshop. Some rights reserved.