Robert Katz
CEO & Executive Director, World Innovation Network
As a toddler with awe-filled eyes glued to the TV, every Moon landing further fueled Robert Katz’s space aspirations. The now Space-Advocate, Cyber-Strategist, Fitness-Freak, and (Real) Rocket Scientist could not resist tinkering with robots and rockets even before kindergarten. By his first year in college, he was privileged to be interning on the Hubble Space Telescope.
Soon, armed with newly minted undergraduate degrees in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, and Chemistry, plus then Graduate Studies in Systems Engineering and Artificial Intelligence, Robert spearheaded the spaceborne protection of Reagan’s communist-crushing Strategic Defense Initiative (The Star Wars Program). This MIT assignment posted him within the Pentagon and firmly boosted his non-stop space career throughout our government, industry, non-profit, and national lab/FFRDC communities, both in the U.S. and internationally. He delivered space, cyber-space, and AI success for clients including CIA, NSA, NGA, NRO, FBI, DEA, DHS, NIST, NOAA, ONR, Justice, Johns Hopkins, and numerous DoD components, including U.S. Space Force, U.S. Space Command, USCYBERCOM, USSOCOM, CENTCOM. CBIRF, and DEVGRU.
Most of his space career targeted unlocking the immeasurable hyper-connective, society-changing potential of satellites and space. This included executive positions or strategist engagements with NASA, COMSAT, Inmarsat, Stratos, Orbital, GE, COMSAT General, Lockheed Martin, SAIC, and CACI. For each, he championed holistic problem-centric solution engineering, which he developed into his crossdomain SOLUTIONneering™ Framework.
Working on-the-ground in over 23 partner countries, Robert forged global alliances to harness the power of space for novel messaging, geo-location, and radar imaging. This included pioneering deployment of the first global internet service, the first global personnel geo-location mapper, the first canopy and ground penetrating imager, the first car tracker, and the first piracy distress alert System.
Yet Robert goes beyond just leading and supporting satellite initiatives for government and established enterprises. As an “ecosystem engineer” uniting technology, talent, and tactics, Robert taps these networks to build, bridge, bolster, and boost startup initiatives for the U.S. and our allies.
Beyond just protecting his country by safeguarding our outer-space, cyber-space, and neural-space (robotics/AI), Robert further protects his community as a firefighter-paramedic, HAZMAT/ChemBioRadNuc specialist, and rescue diver. He remains laser-focused on unleashing the alluring inspiration of space to ignite, and unite, SpaceTech innovation from within our next-generation of explorers, just as space did for him. Accelerated by his Strategic Earthshot Initiative, Robert stands confident that #ConnectingTheThoughts for #MissionsThatMatter will ensure both workforce and economic development by simultaneously strengthening the technological and national security of our communities, our companies, our countries, and our planet.