For its first edition in the United States, the Ocean Hackathon was organized from November 5 to 7, 2021 in Silicon Valley by the scientific department of the Consulate General of France in San Francisco. Built-in collaboration with the “Sustainable Ocean Alliance”, an American NGO dedicated to protecting the oceans and sponsored by the Bank of the West, the event was a great success. For 48 hours, thirty participants, grouped into eight teams, competed to answer one of the eight challenges proposed by local project leaders. Six mentors and five jury members were present to support and judge the teams on the quality of their pitch, prototype, and business model.
More video on our Youtube Channel: French Science in the USA.
8 innovative and cutting-edge projects have been developed in only 48 hours by the teams
Team 1: Ocean Noise Pollution
Name: Through the Eyes of The Humpback Whale VR
Description:
Through the Eyes of The Humpback Whale is a VR experience brought to you with tailored additional educational kits to raise awareness on ocean noise pollution to help environmental organizations, schools, museums and aquariums as well as maritime & shipping industries take actions to restore the ocean soundscapes.
The VR movie transforms you into a majestic humpback whale. Equipped with incredible abilities to use the physical qualities of water to communicate across the seas, the user will experience the underwater world and witness its fate challenging ocean animals and ecosystems health and survival.
Today, ocean noise pollution threatens the ocean animals and ecosystems. This VR unique experience will give a voice to the underwater world and will be a launch point for a strong call for actions.
Team Members:
Yolande Harris – Challenge Owner and Sound Artist
Praful Mathur – Head of AI
Maelys Renaud – Head of Partnerships and Communication
Firuze Gokce – Head of Marketing and Business Development
Team 2: Automated mapping of beach cleanup effort
Name: B Clean Community
Description: B Clean Community is a platform that maps data from beach cleanup efforts to promote citizen science and help individuals and organizations who are facing environmental threats from plastic beaching to better forecast these events and coordinate actions to clean up the coast.
Team Members:
Axel Peytavin (Challenge owner)
Pierre-Loïc Doulcet
Du Nguyen
Team 3: Harnessing the Power of the Ocean with Prefabricated Coastal Communities
Name: LIFE – Living Institute For the Environment
(FR) L’Assemblée Inter-Fonctionnelle de l’Environnement
Description: Using the latest technology and construction methods, LIFE will provide an Adaptable, Self-sustainable and Economically Viable extension for coastal communities who are facing coastal degradation (i.e ocean pollution) and housing needs. Coastal communities will benefit from LIFE’s net zero communities through renewable energy, aquaculture and Architecture Innovative Construction (AIC) solutions to other community needs.
LIFE – Living Institute For the Environment
(FR) L’Assemblée Inter-Fonctionnelle de l’Environnement
Using the latest technology and construction methods, LIFE will provide an Adaptable, Self-sustainable and Economically Viable extension for coastal communities who are facing housing shortages and coastal degradation (i.e ocean pollution). Coastal communities will benefit from LIFE’s net zero housing through renewable energy, aquaculture and innovative solutions to other community needs.
Team Members:
Amr Raafat – Challenge Owner
Charles Romano – MEP Expert
Nicole Collucci – VDC Expert
Florent Passalacqua – Business Expert
Kaila Leonora O’Neill – Researcher
Team 4: Downscaling Oceanographic Data
Name: Vortex
Description: Vortex is a tool for downscaling oceanographic data. It increases the resolution of information of the ocean such as temperature, nutrients, and water circulation. This work will help algaculture farmers, shipping route definers, and consulting companies. They will be benefited by getting access to high resolution data, which is difficult to obtain from traditional remote sensing techniques. This high resolution data will give them better insights of where to place their algae farms, where to route ships to avoid storms, or have a better picture of climate risk assessments.
Team Members:
Jorge Arroyo Esquivel, Programmer
Elisabeth Boles, Data Manager
Peiyun Zhu, Ocean Modeller
Team 5: Solutions to capture plastic pollution️
Name: Netality
Description: Netality is a platform that aims to raise awareness about the abandonment of fishing nets in the sea and promote their recovery by giving them a value and a future new use. These nets pose a threat to marine life, to the environment and to the fishermen themselves, and although once they are broken they have no value, we want to process the raw material and sell them to companies that produce high-value products.
Team Members:
Giancarlo Di Rovasenda
Javier Menasalvas, Researcher
Pierre Collignon, Technology expert
Team 6: Integration of Environmental Data to Autonomous Navigation Systems
Name: Wavous
Description: Wavous is an Application Programming Interface to help autonomous vessels to reduce their ecological footprint and their financial profit.
The project we are working on aims at developing autonomous vessels that integrate environmental concerns. How ? We plan to create an Application Programming Interface (API) based on existing data that autonomous vessels can integrate to their system to take optimized routes that would allow them to reduce their ecological footprint. Once the ships will use this API, they will be able to provide us updated information that will be part of a reciprocal information ecosystem shared with all the autonomous vessels. As boats use the API and share their information, the The API will become more and more efficient and accurate.
Team Members:
Axel Lane, Data Manager
Ana Bucardo, Product design
Jake Zegil, Programmer and modeller
Solène Jouret, Project manager
Team 7: Mapping of regional/global distributions of blue carbon resources
Name: BLUE CARBON
Description: BLUE CARBON is a blue carbon offset company. Our tech enables us to site, monitor, and evaluate blue carbon restoration needs anywhere on the globe; enabling us to sell (more beneficial, more efficient, less expensive) carbon offset credits directly to carbon emitting companies and empowering conservation and restoration coastal ecosytems.
Team Members:
Adrienne Hoarfrost, CEO – Oceanographer & Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA
Avanti Shrikumar, CTO – Data Scientist, Postdoctoral in Data Science at Stanford University
Maïa Bourgoin, COO – Sourcing & Operations, MBA candidate, UC Berkeley
Auriane Tang, CFO – Carbon Credits & Finance, MBA candidate, UC Berkeley
Team 8: Real-time monitoring of ocean circulation
Name: Data Ocean Bank
Description: The goal of the project is to decentralize the data ownership in the ocean ecosystem in order to rebalance value and redefine standards to create a better, more sustainable ocean data economy.
Team Members:
Soufiane Mouline
Amber du
Ghita Zniber
Rob Terry
Award ceremony!
1st Place: Mapping of Blue Carbon Resources (TEAM 7)
Prize: $2,000 + Grand Finale in France
2nd Place: Automated Mapping of Beach Cleanups (TEAM 2)
Prize: Annual National Park and Federal Recreation Land Passes
3rd Place: Downscaling Oceanographic Data (TEAM 4)
Prize: Tickets to the Monterey Bay Aquarium
“Coup de Coeur” – Integration of Environmental Data to ANS (TEAM 6)
Prize: Sunset Catamaran Cruise on San Francisco Bay
Thank you!
Autor :
Héloïse Pajot, Deputy Attachée for Science and Technology in San Francisco and organizer of the Ocean Hackathon 2021 in San Francisco. contact: [email protected]
