View from the Sides: 63rd COPUOS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee session
The 63rd Session of the COPUOS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (STSC) was held from 2nd - 13th February 2026, in Vienna, Austria.
Join us for a review of the perspectives, deliberations, outcome and expectations of the meeting. Lead discussants are Thongwane Namane (South Africa) and Ali Ben Abbes (Tunisia).
Thongwane Lerato NAMANE has worked with and provided financial risk advisory to companies, banks and government. She has held various consulting and corporate roles in financial services at listed financial Institutions with a global presence. She has several years of experience in developed and emerging financial markets, structuring financial risk solutions, evaluating investment opportunities and successfully mitigating investment risk through protection strategies. She has lead teams in conducting forensic due diligence to help organisations uncover synergies, including transactions on capital raise mandates. Authorized as a Key Individual with the Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) she is qualified in Wealth Management. She has served on various boards and committees as a member of the FleetSAR Earth Observation Satellite Constellation Board Steering Committee, a member of the International Astronautical Federation (IAF) Board Committees, Vice-Chairperson of the Aerospace, Maritime and Defence Industries (AMD) Space Committee and a member of the G20 international forum Business 20 (B20) Industrial Transformation and Innovation Task Force. Ms Namane served as Chairperson for the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) $350 million Space Infrastructure Hub industry stream on the Pan-African Agenda for Space, leading the African Partnership Programme for ZASpace that carries a mandate to represent the private sector in building Geospatial Intelligence and Space technology.
Dr. Ali Ben Abbes is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the Manouba School of Engineering (MSE), University of Manouba (Tunisia), and Director of Studies & Internships. His research focuses on GeoAI and Earth Observation, with emphasis on non-stationary spatio-temporal learning for forecasting and monitoring environmental and societal phenomena (drought/climate indicators, land-cover dynamics, and SDG-oriented dashboards). He presented at the 63rd Session of the UN COPUOS Scientific and Technical Subcommittee (Vienna) on space-based observation, GeoAI, and open data for sustainable development and disaster risk reduction in Tunisia. He is active in capacity building, student supervision, and international collaborations, promoting FAIR/open data and transparent decision-support systems.