How did you come up with the idea to move to Luxembourg, and/or what made you decide to settle here?
Pablo Calla: Well, SES (Société Européenne des Satellites) is a supporter of the International Space University (ISU) where I followed a master degree in space studies. Given the connection, I was able to move and work for them. Eventually, given the ambition to create a new company in the New Space field, I decided to settle here because Luxembourg is one of the very few countries that offer support for new space companies as part of their national strategy. There is strong commitment in the country to grow the space industry.
What aspects of Luxembourg attracted you the most?
On one side, Luxembourg surprised me with its large expat community given the small size of the country. In Luxembourg City in particular, there are always new events and activities that target international audiences, which allow you to meet new people and highlights the diversity of its society. This is also reflected in social media with diverse groups and channels for expats.
On the other side, for me, Luxembourg was associated mainly with finance and administration and did not focus on engineering or technology. It was a pleasant surprise to find that a lot of effort is put on growing science and engineering through the “still new” university and the different support mechanisms from the state.
What do you think about the professional or entrepreneurial opportunities available in Luxembourg?
This is a tricky one and I will answer it based on my personal experience through founding a space startup. While Luxembourg is diversifying its efforts towards new fields, such as the space industry and others, it is clear that “fintech” is the predominant area in which expats find themselves in Luxembourg and look to enhance their professional career.
Then, not many people are willing (yet) to follow their scientific or engineering careers in the country as the path for professionalisation in the field is quite narrow. This presents a very big challenge for recruiting qualified personnel in technological areas. Moreover, attracting talent is even more difficult if we put the housing market and high living costs on the table.
On the entrepreneurial side, yes, things were made easy for company creation, settling in, and for access for state support and other funding opportunities. Not many countries have these kind of policies and it plays in favor of Luxembourg. However, there is one area that is not progressive enough to support new industries and fields, and that is the legal and administration side. Unfortunately, the regulations for operations for different businesses are not flexible enough in Luxembourg.
For example, most of the regulations for the “deeptech” industry are the existing regulations for mining industry, given the steel industry heritage of the country. As such, many of the operational rules do not align with the actual new business operations. Progress is very slow if any, and it is unclear if new regulations are being formulated that fit different new industries.