Lena De Winne is the CEO and First Vice-President of NGO Asgardia, which is a prototype of the future space state.  She holds an MSc in engineering, an MBA, and a PhD in psychology. After fifteen years of a successful career at the European Space Agency (ESTEC, The Netherlands), where she worked in business development, liaison, promotion and education, she published several popular books about space in English and Russian for children and adults, and hosted a television program in Belgium.  In 2013 she joined AIRC (airc.at) as a director, where she took on further duties as a director of ROOM, The Space Journal.  Lena De Winne played a pivotal role in setting up and running Asgardia, the first in human history space nation founded by Dr. Igor Ashurbeyli.