We need to listen more – to those born since the turn of the millennium. I was born in 1968 and while I may think of myself as being young in mind, I am a 20th Century citizen. It was that period’s technological and societal developments that really shaped the way I think much more than I may realise. Those born since the late 1990s have been shaped since birth by culture, technology and politics in quite a different way and whilst their views may make many of us oldies uncomfortable, they are the true citizens of the 21st Century.
Professor Anu Ojha moved from secondary-school physics classrooms into national space leadership, without losing sight of the young people who might otherwise never see themselves in STEM.
Anu Ojha was a teenager when he saved enough money from his paper round to buy a telescope. Seeing Saturn’s rings through it became one of those rare moments that changes the direction of a life.
He went on to teach physics and mathematics in secondary schools, eventually becoming an Assistant Headteacher.
But the classroom opened onto a bigger question. How do you make space not simply fascinating to young people, but accessible as a field they can actually imagine entering?
At the National Space Centre, Ojha helped build the National Space Academy from an idea into a major education programme. He later helped bring live science from the International Space Station into UK classrooms through the Astro Academy Principia experiments.
In 2023, he joined the UK Space Agency. He is now its first Space Chief Technology Officer.
It is a long way from a teenager’s telescope. What makes the story interesting is how much of that original impulse has travelled with him.
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