Building an India-led Space Moat for the Global South - A PierSight Roundtable
Most countries in the Global South don’t build their own satellites, so they rely on someone else’s. That dependency used to be purely commercial, involving buying imagery, renting bandwidth, and using a navigation signal much like any other utility. It has since become strategic as well, because whoever controls the satellite also controls who gets the data, when, and on what terms, including during a crisis. India’s pitch to its Indian Ocean neighbours is that it can offer that same capability without the strings China attaches or the leverage the West holds. This roundtable will litmus-test whether that pitch can actually be made true, rather than simply made to sound true.
What to expect: A working session, not a conference. Half a day, four hours.
The structure:
The Asymmetry Thesis (15min)
Panel: What does "Dependable, Non-Coercive" actually require? (45min)
Case study: Maritime Domain Awareness for the Indian Ocean Region (1hr 15min):
Short technical briefing on demand (15min)
Roundtable discussion (1hr) - fishbowl format
Break (15min)
Panel: Financing the Moat - Concessional, Commercial or Hybrid? (1hr) - Capital vs. Policy vs. Tech
Conclusion: Where Do We Go from Here? (30min)
Panelists (constantly updated):
Dr. Chaitanya Giri, Fellow - ORF
Mr. Gaurav Seth, Founder - PierSight
Group Captain H.N. Prasanna - Director, Defence Space Agency
RAdm KG Vishwanathan (Retd.), Co-founder - Suhora Technologies [to be confirmed]
Who is this for: People in policy, investing, financing, space-tech & defence-tech.
What you leave with: A sharper, shared view of what it would take to turn India's neighbourhood pitch into durable capability. A concrete sense of the financing model (concessional, commercial, or hybrid) that could underwrite it. Plus one or two follow-up commitments the attendees can own.
Hosted by PierSight Space & Boundless Ventures. PierSight builds Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems for persistent monitoring of the Earth. Boundless Ventures backs AI-native founders from first cheque to IPO.
This event is part of Basecamp, a community-powered tech week in Bengaluru bringing founders, builders, and operators together. Basecamp is free for the community and powered by the community.