hello everyone my name is Katie gwass
Becky and as introduced I’m starting my
fourth year of mechanical engineering at
the University of Toronto this coming
September but for the last eight months
I’ve been working at synaptic medical a
neurosurgical engineering company where
we design robotic arms to help
neurosurgeons in the operating room I’m
also a foodie a yogi and a space junkie
by day I design robots and by night I am
the director of the space systems
division for the University of Toronto
aerospace team and that’s the half of my
life that I’m going to talk to you about
today they tell me more about Saturn’s
moons and SpaceX landings half the half
they spent the last three years
designing a small satellite with a team
of undergrads so today I’m going to tell
you about how being a part of this
satellite team has changed my leadership
philosophy I’m going to share a very
powerful experience in the last few
months that has changed the future for
teams in this field and lastly I’m going
to explain how this has impacted me my
team and our future so the University of
Toronto aerospace team is composed of
over a hundred students from across the
university from all different faculties
all of us are furiously passionate about
aerospace we build UAVs quad copters
satellites and rockets we would shout
from the rooftops about aerospace if we
could in first year I was part of the
rocketry team and then for the last
three I’ve been part of the team
building this Wonder Bread sized metal
blocks and as of September I’m the lead
leadership of something it’s always come
pretty easily to me I’ve never had
trouble making decisions or helping
people the one thing I have noticed in
the past is leadership techniques are no
longer as effective with young people as
they used to be what I mean is is that
strategies of the past need to evolve
just as their membership does this is
especially important for the teams of
today including my own what I mean is
leaders of the past technical leaders
were prized for their knowledge and
understanding and ability to use designs
to solve their problems
they were experts in their field first
and then they became leaders and that
was still their primary contribution so
I have a few examples for you deke
Slayton Werner von Braun and Marc
Garneau are all examples of this deke
Slayton was a test pilot an astronaut
and then became NASA’s first chief of
astronauts Verner von Braun was of
course a rocket scientist the chief
architect for the saturn v launch
vehicle and then became a nasa deputy
associate administrator and Marc Garneau
engineer astronaut and then became the
president of the Canadian Space Agency
but of course there are lots and lots of
other important characteristics for
strong leaders including experience and
person ability but I argue that in the
20th century the most important thing a
leader could bring to their team was
their knowledge and this is different
today I believe that being the knowledge
excerpt isn’t is no longer the priority
so why is that well because in today’s
modern world members of technical teams
have access to learning resources
wherever and whenever they want
mentorship and research are no longer
the only ways to acquire technical
knowledge but not only is learning
easier it actually can be dangerous for
us young people can often be isolated by
internet connection and this is
important because we’ve found that one
of the most important things that
leaders can do in their teams is to be
present I’m going to give you an example
so on our team on our first iteration
satellite Harran Marquand I was the
thermal lead our team was full of
technical experts but we never actually
had consistent leadership what I mean to
say is our leads would cycle in and out
sometimes as often as every few months
next we would work so so hard in our
workspaces but that was all we did I
started to feel pretty isolated and I
felt isolated and then started to resent
my team this is pretty dangerous what
became important for us then was our
hard work and how at the end of two
years we generated a beautiful satellite
we took it to Ottawa and it passed
vibration testing
which is a fundamental step in our
pre-launch checklist after that we drove
it back to Toronto and the team pretty
much disbanded after that summer I was
asked to be the new director well of
course I said yes
but none of the team from the previous
iteration decided to come back so I
actually had a pretty unique opportunity
to restart and rebuild Haren mark2 with
a new set of leadership values and I
knew from the very beginning that I was
not going to be the technical expert
just as I wasn’t on this team but I
still had a chance and I wanted to take
advantage of it and what I mean is I
actually don’t have the skills to
support 70% of the design of the
satellite but you know I do my best
I had to carve out my own profile for
leadership now what did that look like
well for me that looked like lots of
open and frank conversations with my
team we sat down in October and we said
what was our team culture going to look
like we wanted to be hardworking
compassionate and not only about our
team culture but what did every person
need to succeed on the team I wanted my
team to be friends first and not only
know that they could rely on me when
times got tough but that they could rely
on each other these concrete
conversations made us come up with some
pretty interesting changes to our team
dynamic so some of the things we end up
doing now is we have personal meetings
where we discuss each other’s workloads
and how lies are going we also do things
entirely outside of our own work like
we’ll go support one of our own when he
goes and performs on stage these values
have taught me important lessons and one
of them is I need to understand where
people are coming from so I asked my
lead that very question I asked what
brings you to this team and what keeps
you here and thankfully the answer is
varied widely just as I had expected
some said because I love space others
said because I want to hone my
engineering skills and even some said
because this is the future why anyone
chooses to arrive on this team I honor
that every day and I’ll do my best to
ensure that those reasons are guarded so
these concrete changes and these
conversations
led to this incredible support for all
of us and I as the director for the
first time feel supported on my team I
trust that my team is going to deliver
not only technically but we’ll support
each other because we’re all in pursuit
of the same goal but with our own true
motivation our own true value behind us
one of the ways I was able to solidify
this was I asked my team another
question I asked what are the most
important things the technical leaders
deliver in teams these days well the
answers were experience vision ability
to remove roadblocks and enabling ones
best work that is exactly what I was
hoping to hear because there is a need
for sensitivity in today’s technical
teams investing time in developing a
team support network is just as
important as technical progress at the
onset of a project well how do I know
that let me tell you a little bit about
our goals here mark two aims to follow
here in mark one in its goals we aim to
create a microbiology experiment
performed on a small satellite we aim to
perform experiments on a fungi called
Candida albicans to see whether or not
it could pose a risk to astronauts on
long-duration missions Heron mark – also
aims to be a platform that will
eventually be open source allowing
scientists and students from across the
world to perform their own experiments
why is this so groundbreaking well
actually nASA has been the only one to
make this happen so yeah
we’re trying to do it too and if we’re
able to do that it means that we’re
making it orders of magnitude cheaper
and making an open source increases the
accessibility of space for all and
that’s the goal at the end of the day
but it’s one thing to design a satellite
and it’s another thing to try and launch
it I mean all of us have tried to have
wanted to put something in space
everyone on my team and for the last
three years we’ve tried to make it
happen we’ve talked to the Canadian
Space Agency we’ve talked to banks we
even thought about our crowdfunding
campaign but nothing was able to cover
the cost which can be upwards of
$300,000 our last bet was to go through
the University and ask students for help
Herron mark ones team tried to put a
levy on student tuition this last year
but failed in the first of two stages
Herron mark Tuesday was committed to try
again so what does that look like well
if we’re able to charge all 43,000
undergrads on the downtown campus a
small fee then we could afford launch
but let me tell you the process is full
of red tape we have to go through the
initial petition and then secondly the
campaign period so to pass the petition
you have to collect over 2,000
signatures from across the university
with a representative distribution 1,300
of those have to be from the arts and
science faculty luckily for us half of a
fair and Mark Stu’s team is from that
faculty so we had a broader reach from
the very beginning so what did we do
well we created a plan and every day at
all of us would go to classes and
collect signatures we pass out forms and
if students signed it meant that they
supported us in our cause enough to let
us move on to the campaign stage my team
was stellar here some would skip classes
and split tests to collect signatures
I’m not condoning that but they really
were incredible our collection rate was
pretty consistent until trouble struck
the Student Union informed us that the
campaign period was moved up two weeks
so we had four days to collect 1000
signatures
four days to submit all our information
instead of freaking out and doing
ourselves to failure we rose to the
occasion so what did we do well we
created a plan and we scheduled every
moment from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. of those
four days I would even go to work at 6
a.m. so I could leave early to collect
we all made sacrifices you know what
after the first day we collected 800
signatures
what a relief and by the end of those 4
days we had collected a thousand more
than we originally needed to and that
all came down to my team so the next
step well the campaign you can actually
see on this graph when the Student Union
told us about the date change so as I
said the campaign so the campaign we
wanted to educate and inform students as
well as make sure that everybody knew
the specific benefits of our project we
wanted to convince students to pay two
dollars and seventy seven cents per
student per semester over two years and
that would total half a billion dollars
so how do we do it well we had to create
a very interesting thought provoking
campaign and these are the questions we
would ask students we asked questions
like do you know how hard it is to put
something in space do you know how to
fill a test tube in space our main goal
was to allow students who might not be
as space literate to tune in and find
the answers online once again my team
was incredible here they built this they
put up posters they create an
interesting content and all I could do
was sit at work and hope that all went
well that’s really hard for me I’m
always the one to make things happen but
this time I just had to trust that my
team at school was doing their very best
to spread our message on March 16th the
voting period ended and I just had to
wait to know if we were going to have
the chance to make my dreams come true
so these last three months of levee
planning though I’ve had the most vivid
daydreams they were they were
all-consuming I would see in my mind
that the letter e went through and I
could just feel the tears welling up and
this was every single day it was so
overwhelming that I swore that if I let
it continue it would come to life I was
so scared of success and I was so scared
of failure that the result was gonna
kill me other way but the day came
anyway March 16th I left work and on my
way home I found out the levy passed and
I broke down and started crying on the
sidewalk
it was the most resonant thing I’ve ever
experienced it was like something came
into alignment like all the sacrifices I
had made missing birthdays and social
events and not seeing my family like all
those things those sacrifices were made
worth it because those people supported
me from the very beginning this levy has
taught me the value of letting my team
follow their own true value this levy
has taught me that whatever I give my
team they’re going to give it right back
and this levy has taught me that my role
is threefold
I am the cheerleader I am the program
manager and I am the best friend and I
play those simultaneously seeing the
work that my team put in to make this
levy happen excites me beyond belief for
our future now what is our future well
now that the levees past my role has
changed slightly I am now responsible
for team wide timeline development which
essentially means making sure that we
hit all launch requirements and I’m also
leading with large providers which is so
cool I also do general team admin and
I’m still the thermal lead but I’ve also
been restructuring the team we’ve
recruited a new systems designer to help
us with our integration and from a
mindset point of view we’ve been
reprioritizing
to talk to experts in the field and
learn everything we’ve been asking
questions about how to plan our design
decisions how to redefine our goals to
make sure we’re set up for success I
know my team is just itching to get back
to design work
and who knows down the line maybe this
time next year Herron mark – we’ll pass
qualification testing and then in 2019
well sticker in the cove in the
deployment mechanism and say goodbye to
our pride and joy but let me tell you
this excitement goes way beyond our team
we have the chance to establish a
consistent launch program at U of T
imagine being able to launch a satellite
before you graduate your undergrad
that’s within our grasp if we renew the
levy every two years we can make that
happen and firstly this is unheard of in
Canada and this would essentially
establish U of T as the forefront for
Canadian undergraduate satellite
development we just want Canadian
students to have more access to space
and I’m part of a team that can do that
I’m part of a team that believes in the
value of a new leadership philosophy a
philosophy that believes in allowing
everyone to follow their own true value
and that there is such benefit in a
well-rounded approach to harness the
potential of the team giving every team
member the freedom to succeed allows us
all to see the possibilities ahead of us
our possibility was the levy at our
fingertips now one of our most revered
advisors said to me before the levy
passed you said you know most student
teams don’t succeed but I think yours
has a chance with you and while I’m
flattered I think there’s a lot more to
it I think it goes both ways I think I
have a chance at my dream with my team
and I think that that’s the most
important thing I think that this levy
has been a life-changing experience for
all of us and I’m inspired beyond belief
for what’s to happen next I’m humbled to
be able to be on a team and lead a team
that has supported me in my dreams since
the very beginning the world is opening
up for young people all we have to do is
give them the confidence to approach
their dreams so thank you to my team and
thank you all for listening
you
Becky and as introduced I’m starting my
fourth year of mechanical engineering at
the University of Toronto this coming
September but for the last eight months
I’ve been working at synaptic medical a
neurosurgical engineering company where
we design robotic arms to help
neurosurgeons in the operating room I’m
also a foodie a yogi and a space junkie
by day I design robots and by night I am
the director of the space systems
division for the University of Toronto
aerospace team and that’s the half of my
life that I’m going to talk to you about
today they tell me more about Saturn’s
moons and SpaceX landings half the half
they spent the last three years
designing a small satellite with a team
of undergrads so today I’m going to tell
you about how being a part of this
satellite team has changed my leadership
philosophy I’m going to share a very
powerful experience in the last few
months that has changed the future for
teams in this field and lastly I’m going
to explain how this has impacted me my
team and our future so the University of
Toronto aerospace team is composed of
over a hundred students from across the
university from all different faculties
all of us are furiously passionate about
aerospace we build UAVs quad copters
satellites and rockets we would shout
from the rooftops about aerospace if we
could in first year I was part of the
rocketry team and then for the last
three I’ve been part of the team
building this Wonder Bread sized metal
blocks and as of September I’m the lead
leadership of something it’s always come
pretty easily to me I’ve never had
trouble making decisions or helping
people the one thing I have noticed in
the past is leadership techniques are no
longer as effective with young people as
they used to be what I mean is is that
strategies of the past need to evolve
just as their membership does this is
especially important for the teams of
today including my own what I mean is
leaders of the past technical leaders
were prized for their knowledge and
understanding and ability to use designs
to solve their problems
they were experts in their field first
and then they became leaders and that
was still their primary contribution so
I have a few examples for you deke
Slayton Werner von Braun and Marc
Garneau are all examples of this deke
Slayton was a test pilot an astronaut
and then became NASA’s first chief of
astronauts Verner von Braun was of
course a rocket scientist the chief
architect for the saturn v launch
vehicle and then became a nasa deputy
associate administrator and Marc Garneau
engineer astronaut and then became the
president of the Canadian Space Agency
but of course there are lots and lots of
other important characteristics for
strong leaders including experience and
person ability but I argue that in the
20th century the most important thing a
leader could bring to their team was
their knowledge and this is different
today I believe that being the knowledge
excerpt isn’t is no longer the priority
so why is that well because in today’s
modern world members of technical teams
have access to learning resources
wherever and whenever they want
mentorship and research are no longer
the only ways to acquire technical
knowledge but not only is learning
easier it actually can be dangerous for
us young people can often be isolated by
internet connection and this is
important because we’ve found that one
of the most important things that
leaders can do in their teams is to be
present I’m going to give you an example
so on our team on our first iteration
satellite Harran Marquand I was the
thermal lead our team was full of
technical experts but we never actually
had consistent leadership what I mean to
say is our leads would cycle in and out
sometimes as often as every few months
next we would work so so hard in our
workspaces but that was all we did I
started to feel pretty isolated and I
felt isolated and then started to resent
my team this is pretty dangerous what
became important for us then was our
hard work and how at the end of two
years we generated a beautiful satellite
we took it to Ottawa and it passed
vibration testing
which is a fundamental step in our
pre-launch checklist after that we drove
it back to Toronto and the team pretty
much disbanded after that summer I was
asked to be the new director well of
course I said yes
but none of the team from the previous
iteration decided to come back so I
actually had a pretty unique opportunity
to restart and rebuild Haren mark2 with
a new set of leadership values and I
knew from the very beginning that I was
not going to be the technical expert
just as I wasn’t on this team but I
still had a chance and I wanted to take
advantage of it and what I mean is I
actually don’t have the skills to
support 70% of the design of the
satellite but you know I do my best
I had to carve out my own profile for
leadership now what did that look like
well for me that looked like lots of
open and frank conversations with my
team we sat down in October and we said
what was our team culture going to look
like we wanted to be hardworking
compassionate and not only about our
team culture but what did every person
need to succeed on the team I wanted my
team to be friends first and not only
know that they could rely on me when
times got tough but that they could rely
on each other these concrete
conversations made us come up with some
pretty interesting changes to our team
dynamic so some of the things we end up
doing now is we have personal meetings
where we discuss each other’s workloads
and how lies are going we also do things
entirely outside of our own work like
we’ll go support one of our own when he
goes and performs on stage these values
have taught me important lessons and one
of them is I need to understand where
people are coming from so I asked my
lead that very question I asked what
brings you to this team and what keeps
you here and thankfully the answer is
varied widely just as I had expected
some said because I love space others
said because I want to hone my
engineering skills and even some said
because this is the future why anyone
chooses to arrive on this team I honor
that every day and I’ll do my best to
ensure that those reasons are guarded so
these concrete changes and these
conversations
led to this incredible support for all
of us and I as the director for the
first time feel supported on my team I
trust that my team is going to deliver
not only technically but we’ll support
each other because we’re all in pursuit
of the same goal but with our own true
motivation our own true value behind us
one of the ways I was able to solidify
this was I asked my team another
question I asked what are the most
important things the technical leaders
deliver in teams these days well the
answers were experience vision ability
to remove roadblocks and enabling ones
best work that is exactly what I was
hoping to hear because there is a need
for sensitivity in today’s technical
teams investing time in developing a
team support network is just as
important as technical progress at the
onset of a project well how do I know
that let me tell you a little bit about
our goals here mark two aims to follow
here in mark one in its goals we aim to
create a microbiology experiment
performed on a small satellite we aim to
perform experiments on a fungi called
Candida albicans to see whether or not
it could pose a risk to astronauts on
long-duration missions Heron mark – also
aims to be a platform that will
eventually be open source allowing
scientists and students from across the
world to perform their own experiments
why is this so groundbreaking well
actually nASA has been the only one to
make this happen so yeah
we’re trying to do it too and if we’re
able to do that it means that we’re
making it orders of magnitude cheaper
and making an open source increases the
accessibility of space for all and
that’s the goal at the end of the day
but it’s one thing to design a satellite
and it’s another thing to try and launch
it I mean all of us have tried to have
wanted to put something in space
everyone on my team and for the last
three years we’ve tried to make it
happen we’ve talked to the Canadian
Space Agency we’ve talked to banks we
even thought about our crowdfunding
campaign but nothing was able to cover
the cost which can be upwards of
$300,000 our last bet was to go through
the University and ask students for help
Herron mark ones team tried to put a
levy on student tuition this last year
but failed in the first of two stages
Herron mark Tuesday was committed to try
again so what does that look like well
if we’re able to charge all 43,000
undergrads on the downtown campus a
small fee then we could afford launch
but let me tell you the process is full
of red tape we have to go through the
initial petition and then secondly the
campaign period so to pass the petition
you have to collect over 2,000
signatures from across the university
with a representative distribution 1,300
of those have to be from the arts and
science faculty luckily for us half of a
fair and Mark Stu’s team is from that
faculty so we had a broader reach from
the very beginning so what did we do
well we created a plan and every day at
all of us would go to classes and
collect signatures we pass out forms and
if students signed it meant that they
supported us in our cause enough to let
us move on to the campaign stage my team
was stellar here some would skip classes
and split tests to collect signatures
I’m not condoning that but they really
were incredible our collection rate was
pretty consistent until trouble struck
the Student Union informed us that the
campaign period was moved up two weeks
so we had four days to collect 1000
signatures
four days to submit all our information
instead of freaking out and doing
ourselves to failure we rose to the
occasion so what did we do well we
created a plan and we scheduled every
moment from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. of those
four days I would even go to work at 6
a.m. so I could leave early to collect
we all made sacrifices you know what
after the first day we collected 800
signatures
what a relief and by the end of those 4
days we had collected a thousand more
than we originally needed to and that
all came down to my team so the next
step well the campaign you can actually
see on this graph when the Student Union
told us about the date change so as I
said the campaign so the campaign we
wanted to educate and inform students as
well as make sure that everybody knew
the specific benefits of our project we
wanted to convince students to pay two
dollars and seventy seven cents per
student per semester over two years and
that would total half a billion dollars
so how do we do it well we had to create
a very interesting thought provoking
campaign and these are the questions we
would ask students we asked questions
like do you know how hard it is to put
something in space do you know how to
fill a test tube in space our main goal
was to allow students who might not be
as space literate to tune in and find
the answers online once again my team
was incredible here they built this they
put up posters they create an
interesting content and all I could do
was sit at work and hope that all went
well that’s really hard for me I’m
always the one to make things happen but
this time I just had to trust that my
team at school was doing their very best
to spread our message on March 16th the
voting period ended and I just had to
wait to know if we were going to have
the chance to make my dreams come true
so these last three months of levee
planning though I’ve had the most vivid
daydreams they were they were
all-consuming I would see in my mind
that the letter e went through and I
could just feel the tears welling up and
this was every single day it was so
overwhelming that I swore that if I let
it continue it would come to life I was
so scared of success and I was so scared
of failure that the result was gonna
kill me other way but the day came
anyway March 16th I left work and on my
way home I found out the levy passed and
I broke down and started crying on the
sidewalk
it was the most resonant thing I’ve ever
experienced it was like something came
into alignment like all the sacrifices I
had made missing birthdays and social
events and not seeing my family like all
those things those sacrifices were made
worth it because those people supported
me from the very beginning this levy has
taught me the value of letting my team
follow their own true value this levy
has taught me that whatever I give my
team they’re going to give it right back
and this levy has taught me that my role
is threefold
I am the cheerleader I am the program
manager and I am the best friend and I
play those simultaneously seeing the
work that my team put in to make this
levy happen excites me beyond belief for
our future now what is our future well
now that the levees past my role has
changed slightly I am now responsible
for team wide timeline development which
essentially means making sure that we
hit all launch requirements and I’m also
leading with large providers which is so
cool I also do general team admin and
I’m still the thermal lead but I’ve also
been restructuring the team we’ve
recruited a new systems designer to help
us with our integration and from a
mindset point of view we’ve been
reprioritizing
to talk to experts in the field and
learn everything we’ve been asking
questions about how to plan our design
decisions how to redefine our goals to
make sure we’re set up for success I
know my team is just itching to get back
to design work
and who knows down the line maybe this
time next year Herron mark – we’ll pass
qualification testing and then in 2019
well sticker in the cove in the
deployment mechanism and say goodbye to
our pride and joy but let me tell you
this excitement goes way beyond our team
we have the chance to establish a
consistent launch program at U of T
imagine being able to launch a satellite
before you graduate your undergrad
that’s within our grasp if we renew the
levy every two years we can make that
happen and firstly this is unheard of in
Canada and this would essentially
establish U of T as the forefront for
Canadian undergraduate satellite
development we just want Canadian
students to have more access to space
and I’m part of a team that can do that
I’m part of a team that believes in the
value of a new leadership philosophy a
philosophy that believes in allowing
everyone to follow their own true value
and that there is such benefit in a
well-rounded approach to harness the
potential of the team giving every team
member the freedom to succeed allows us
all to see the possibilities ahead of us
our possibility was the levy at our
fingertips now one of our most revered
advisors said to me before the levy
passed you said you know most student
teams don’t succeed but I think yours
has a chance with you and while I’m
flattered I think there’s a lot more to
it I think it goes both ways I think I
have a chance at my dream with my team
and I think that that’s the most
important thing I think that this levy
has been a life-changing experience for
all of us and I’m inspired beyond belief
for what’s to happen next I’m humbled to
be able to be on a team and lead a team
that has supported me in my dreams since
the very beginning the world is opening
up for young people all we have to do is
give them the confidence to approach
their dreams so thank you to my team and
thank you all for listening
you
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