Can you please introduce yourself?
Hi, I'm Loay Elbasyouni. I'm an electrical engineer by education. I worked on part of the NASA Mars 2020 mission and was the lead engineer on the Mars helicopter. My past experience includes power electronics as well as autonomous systems, robotics, and spacecraft. I started my career working in automotive, and my big mission has always been electrifying everything for environmental reasons. [Growing up] I saw a big connection between oil industries and wars in the Middle East. I wanted to really focus my career on bringing an alternative to the world.
What Autodesk tools have been part of your design and make journey?
In the past, I used AutoCAD. It's always been a classic, and I studied it in college. In a past life, I was also very into graphic design and stuff like that, so I also used 3ds Max and Maya. Not many universities still teach traditional drafting, but my university required it as an electrical engineer. Everybody had to study drafting, and then our second class was how to do exactly the same thing but in AutoCAD. The teams I've managed have used it for sketches and schematics, which is not something it's designed for. We also have 3ds Max and Maya.
What work related to sustainability have you been involved in recently?
I wouldn't say recently because my career started in the automotive industry, but from there, I worked on a lot of electric cars and wind energy early on. Then, I switched to working more on alternative airplanes, like solar planes and hydrogen planes. The Mars helicopter is actually a solar-based plane, too. The last thing I worked on before I began focusing on my startup AstraQua was running the engine avionics for Blue Origin and driving the electrification of rocket engines.
I was introducing ways to make rocket engines more efficient by including electrification in them. So that [involved] developing drive systems like motor drives that we could use for compression, pumps, and gimbles. They usually use a pre-burner to start the rocket engine. In the past, a lot of the propulsion and actuation was done either hydraulically or through building rocket fuel. So I was looking at how to electrify part of that.
Another big project I worked on was back in 2007 when Texas oil tycoon T. Boone bought thousands of wind turbines to build one of the biggest wind farms in the United States . Gas turbines were a little bit cheaper, but because of gas prices at the time, natural gas prices went up. So the wind turbine was actually a better return on investment.
I take great big pride in helping find alternative solutions for cheaper. And I think with technology, we could do that. I don't think everything could be done through government. That's why oil is cheap because there are so many oil subsidies. Then we get addicted to the subsidies, and we never get rid of them. So, that actually limits the industry's ability to move forward and create a more sustainable future. So, sometimes, believe it or not, the government limits us from advancing further because the consumer, and even the capitalist, only cares about increasing profitability and making more money.
You briefly touched on it, but how did this interest in sustainability begin for you?
This is actually a really long story. Not a lot of people know this, but I was very political when I was younger. Growing up, I had a different view of the world, especially coming from Palestine. I worked with many NGOs at the time, including various peace and justice groups. I used to lobby in Washington, D.C., for various NGOs and causes. A lot of the time, the causes were related to farm workers. Since I was very anti-war, I came across a lot of people who also cared about the environment and things like that.
But when the Iraq war happened, it made me really become anti-oil in a way. I was already working in politics but felt like politics was really not the solution. I wanted to be part of the solution and innovate the future. My strongest belief at the time was, "If I can make electric cars cheaper than making gas cars, then everybody's going to buy an electric car." I wanted to be part of that solution. So I focused my entire career on "how can I do things that improve the world?"
It seems like you're really interested in addressing the core root of the problem and finding solutions rather than maintaining the status quo.
Mhm. We have to create an alternative route. Working on space taught me we don't really have anything else like our Earth. I will challenge anybody to tell me that there is a planet like Earth. Maybe other planets could sustain life, but are they even like Earth? And even then, I don't know how we could get there. People always ask me where I'm from; I say "I'm from the Earth, and I'm part of the human race". This is the way I look at it. The climate of the Earth is very special. I think Earth is very special. I think Earth belongs to all of us. So it really hurts me to see things in a war zone. Not because it's happening to a specific group but because it's happening to all of us. It's us killing us, and we're destroying our planet. So, a lot of these things drive me to keep improving our future. I want to help advance all of humanity to a better place and preserve our planet.
What can you tell us about your startup, AstraQua?
We're working on two things right now. The first is what we'll be calling the "dynamic autonomous robot," which inovlves us connecting AI to an autonomous system. We're not really booting AI in the robot itself, but we will allow for different centralized computing to be able to actually change the mission. That's one of the biggest things we're working on. And then the second thing we are going to focus is on undersea exploration. We are going to be able to do under-ocean mapping and utilize a centralized AI to optimize and advance these autonomous robots to be able to do more things together. We basically built like a swarm of robotics that you need to operate together. So the AI can collect a lot of this data and present an example of a complete solution.
Could you talk briefly about the importance of education and the opportunities it provides? Do you have any advice for the next generation of students who might not have immediate access to certain tools or opportunities in their local communities?
Honestly, I like to talk about this quite a bit. I give a lot of talks around the world, and one common thing always comes up: everybody thinks they need to be in a specific place to succeed and move on or work for a specific company to accomplish something. In some ways, I think this is just a result of not believing in yourself, your capability, and what's around you. To have a passion for anything, you really have to have a purpose. You have to find purpose in your community. Often, opportunities are near you; we just sometimes do not look for them.
Living in Gaza is quite a bit different. I went to a refugee school, where sometimes our school was shut down because of problems with the authorities or students rebelling or something like that. So, for a lot of the school year, I did not have access to school. I had to study by myself—the exam was still at the end of the year. So I encourage others to have faith. You have to really believe that you can achieve something and that you're not limited by your surroundings. Remember, there are also going to be a lot of doubters. I think you should ignore them. Even people close to you, because they can only relate to what they know. They really cannot see the future and cannot see what's in your head.
Sending a rocket to space is a 5-10 year project, so planning the milestones, understanding, executing and keeping on is essential to achieving success. Remember to plan. Everyone has dreams, and your dream could be an innovation, but if you don't have a plan that is going to hold you accountable to every single milestone you have to meet, it won't work. I have friends who come up to me with ideas all day, every day. They text me 10 ideas a day, and I tell them, "Bro, please send me one idea fully detailed and then come up with a schedule plan."
Finally, if you can, take the opportunity to learn from older people around you. I wish I had learned a lot more. I still read a lot of books but sometimes I go "I wish I had known this when I was 18 or 20." The more I learned, the more I discovered that I didn't know a lot of things. A lot of time you're going to meet people who want to help you, and I think it's really important to allow that to happen. Sometimes we get blinded by our own knowledge, and we think we know a lot of things, but we really don't.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity*
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