Welcome to our April Newsletter!
March Was a Big Oceans Month in Europe, More to Come in April:
At last month’s Economist’s World Ocean Summit in Lisbon, we participated in the panel
announcing this year’s winners of the
Ocean Changemakers Challenge
. The three winners – rrreefs, SOS Carbon and Water Warriors – were all inspiring, and Ted is looking forward to serving as mentor for the coming year for
rrreefs, a passionate Zurich-based startup rethinking, rebuilding and regenerating coral reefs with an
innovative modular reef system.
The following week we attended Monaco Ocean Week, which this year featured over 50 (yes, that’s
correct!) events. While it’s hard to pick highlights, here’s a few: The
Monaco Blue Initiative provided a kaleidoscopic view of the oceans’ challenges and
opportunities, the Ocean Innovators Platform featured “cutting edge
technologies and inventive solutions aiming at conserving the world’s ocean, seas and marine resources,” and The Explorers Club and Yacht Club of Monaco partnered to host a
Day of Exploration with
an admirable array of ocean pioneers and stewards.
We’re Back on the Road Soon: Film, NYC Tech and More Ocean Innovation:
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San Francisco, International Ocean Film Festival, April 12th-14th. Ted and
Tiff are both attending – Ted will kick off the festivities as the Opening Night guest MC on Friday, April 12th and will moderate a blue carbon/blue economy panel on Saturday,
April 13th. The panel, “Ocean Frontiers: Demystifying Blue Carbon and the Blue
Economy,” will feature Maria Brown, Doug Heske and Jayda Guy, from the film Blue Carbon which will open the festival.
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NYC OceanTech Summit, May 17th-18th. Thanks to the formidable trio of Delaney Demark, Jake Russell and Will Lutz, Blue Tech is landing in the Big
Apple along with the Vendee Globe on May 17th-18th. We look forward to speaking at this inaugural event and meeting up with other like-minded entrepreneurs, researchers and
investors from the ever-expanding ocean innovation community. Registration and event details
here
.
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The Hague, OCEANOVATION Festival, June 19th-20th. We attended and spoke at last year’s inaugural event, which was energizing and productive. We’ll be
speaking again this June at the Festival, and hope to see many of you there. Here’s a sampling of speakers and
registration information
.
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Montreal, Ocean Fest @Startup Fest, July 11th. We look forward to moderating a panel at this exciting event. Hosted by
Novarium and
Canada’s Ocean Supercluster, this is the second year of this conference, to be held in Port of
Montreal’s new venue by the waterfront. You can learn more and register here.
World Oceans Week @The Explorers Club – Coming Soon and Bigger than Ever:
The Explorers Club is back with its 8th Annual World Oceans Week June 3rd-8th. A few highlights: Sylvia Earle, Hope Spots, flag returns, Project CETI, the Great Blue Wall, Tom
Ford’s Plastic Innovation Prize, the annual sustainable seafood soiree, Susan Casey, Victor Vescovo, Alan Jamieson, Billion Oyster Project, art displays and much, much more.
Details coming soon, if you're not on The Explorers Club mailing list please let us know and we’ll pass information along as we learn it.
There are also numerous side events, focused on the Bahamas, West Indian ocean, blue carbon, ocean data and other topics – some of these events are invite-only, please let us know
if you plan to be in New York City then and we're happy to share what we know.
The UN will be celebrating World Oceans Day this year on Friday June 7th – the theme is Awaken New Depths and you can learn more
here. Always a unique and inspiring event, we hope to see you there!
Don’t Miss Investable Oceans’ April Investor Gathering!:
Last month, we featured two exciting early stage blue economy companies: one aims to transform the future of ocean farming, and the other to provide software applications for
recreational fishers while collecting valuable data for sustainable ocean governance initiatives. If you’re an accredited investor, you can access the CEO pitch recordings on the
Investable Oceans site here; those who are not registered with us can
sign up to join our investor community. At that session we also heard from Patrick
Arnold, CEO of the New England Ocean Cluster based in Portland, Maine – you can watch his
overview of this dynamic initiative on Vimeo here.
Our next investor gathering is Thursday April 18th, and will feature two winners of last October’s
Ocean Exchange competition. We were delighted to participate as an evaluator and voting delegate, and
look forward to hosting a sustainable energy storage company and a safe anchoring company. The remarkable Milly Pitts will kick our hour off, sharing insights developed over a
decade of leading one of the most rigorous and highly regarded ocean innovation platforms.
As always, we thank you for your support and look forward to an exciting year ahead for the oceans!
The Investable Oceans Team
