From classrooms to space command centers
Training the UAE’s space generation
Maymee Kurian
Chief Human Capital Officer, Space42
The UAE’s ambitions in space rest on a foundation most people overlook: education. Over the past two decades, the nation has transformed its education landscape with remarkable speed and purpose. Education, innovation, and inclusion now work in harmony, forming a system designed to unlock opportunity and drive national progress.
STEM sits at the heart of this transformation, embedded in Vision 2031 and the UAE’s national strategies for AI and space. Universities such as Khalifa University and the Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence are fueling breakthroughs, from the Mars Hope Probe to large language models like JAIS. In schools, initiatives such as One Million Arab Coders are inspiring students to see technology as their future.
The results are clear: over 30% of UAE graduates come from STEM fields, placing the country among global leaders. Women continue to drive this progress; 61% of STEM students in the UAE are female, one of the highest rates worldwide. These young women bring a sense of purpose and drive that reminds us what the future of space can look like when opportunity meets belief.
Turning curiosity into careers
In late 2024, as Space42 prepared for the Thuraya-4 satellite launch, a partnership with the Ministry of Education gave students a rare, behind-the-scenes view of the space industry.
Over six weeks, classrooms gave way to command centers. Students toured facilities, stepped into live satellite control rooms, and spoke directly with mission engineers. At Thuraya’s offices, they engaged in hands-on exercises with one of the region’s most advanced space systems.
These experiences show how collaboration between education, government, and industry transforms learning into leadership, turning classroom curiosity into careers that advance national capability.
For many, it was the first time they could imagine themselves not just as students, but as future mission controllers, data scientists, and space leaders.
Training future leaders
For professionals further along in their career, the National Space Academy, developed with the UAE Space Agency, provides a bridge from ambition to expertise.
The latest cohort, held between May and July 2025, brought together UAE nationals from government, private, and academic sectors. At the Academy, learning happens alongside operations. Trainees work directly with engineers, analysts, and satellite teams, engaging with the same platforms that sustain the UAE’s space infrastructure.
Every module connects learning with purpose. The Academy stands as proof that capability grows where opportunity, experience, and national ambition intersect.
To complement this, the Space42 Accelerator Program is designed to develop leaders of the future by setting top Emirati graduate hires on a fast-track career path through on-the-job, self, and peer learning and development. The program ensures that high-potential talent is equipped with both the technical expertise and leadership mindset needed to contribute meaningfully to the UAE’s growing space ecosystem.
Together, these initiatives form a continuous pathway for growth, from early education to leadership, reflecting Space42’s belief that the nation’s future in space will be built by the people it invests in today.
Talent powers sovereignity
At Space42, the UAE’s path to leadership in space is seen as a human story, one that begins with education, grows through collaboration, and succeeds through people who carry the nation’s ambition forward.
Talent remains the most powerful engine of sovereignty, and nurturing it requires capability, inclusion, and shared ambition. Every partnership, every program, and every mission reflects this belief, that the future of space will be shaped by people whose curiosity today defines the UAE’s tomorrow.