85th Edition
Ocean Visions Summit reflections, ocean-climate solutions hitting the mainstream, and NYC OceanTech Summit 2025 coming soon!
Hi everyone!
Despite the threats of new NOAA budget cuts in the US, there are still a number of fundings and bodies of work to be excited about this week. There’s some good variety in the “Learning” section this week, so I recommend you check it out— in case you haven’t already noticed, I’m a huge fan of the work of Ocean Nexus.
Also, I’m super excited to once again co-host this year’s NYC OceanTech Summit, which will be taking place in early June! Sign up for our early notification mailing list to make sure you get the updates on the summit as they roll out.
News
Bloomberg has written about Sofar Ocean’s technologies: In response to mounting regulatory pressures and the urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, shipping companies are increasingly adopting innovative technologies such as AI-driven route optimization, high-tech sails, and onboard carbon capture systems to enhance fuel efficiency and lower their carbon footprint.
NASA's ECCO (Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean) project integrates vast oceanic data to create detailed visualizations of ocean currents, enhancing our understanding of ocean dynamics and their impact on climate and ecosystems.
This article from AquaFeed offers a nuanced look at the evolving aquaculture industry, highlighting its promise in addressing global food security and climate resilience, while critically examining the financial, technological, and regulatory hurdles that investors and innovators must navigate to scale sustainable growth in this complex, resource-intensive sector.
South Africa's Oceana Group has invested in Hatch Blue's Seafood Innovation and Sustainability Fund, aiming to support startups focused on sustainable seafood production, supply chain improvements, and regenerative aquaculture.
Ocean Visions has created an mCDR Ecosystem Database.
It has been announced that the 2026 Our Oceans Conference will be taking place in Kenya.
Now streaming, Reef Builders is a documentary that chronicles the global efforts of local communities and marine scientists—particularly through the SHEBA® Hope Grows™ initiative—to restore coral reefs in regions like Indonesia, Kenya, Australia, and Hawai’i, showcasing the transformative impact of community-driven marine conservation amid the escalating challenges of climate change.
Opportunities
There is an open call for side events at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice in June. Applications for in-person side events at the conference venue have closed, but applications for off-site or virtual events are due April 21.
Applications are open for the Great Lakes Blue Tech Challenge. Apply here.
As of January 21st, applications are open for call for projects issued to the scientific community throughout the European Economic Area (EEA) on the topic of Ocean and Coastal Ecosystems.
The 'Our Shared Ocean' Mobility and Travel Grants 2025 program offers funding to support research conferences, training courses, and research visits, primarily for Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in partnership with Irish institutions. Remaining submission deadlines are June 13, September 5, and November 7, 2025.
Hatch Blue, an aquaculture and alternative seafood investor, is looking for startups to join their accelerator program, in which they will invest $75,000 in each successful applicant.
Apply to Katapult’s Ocean Accelerator program that is designed to guide founders through complex entrepreneurial issues, add structure, and help raise a startup’s next round.
Fair Carbon has launched a Blue Carbon Academy that aims to help with the fine-tuning of the design of a Blue Carbon project.
Events
Join the webinar entitled “Unlocking Investment Capital for Blue Carbon Markets” on April 16th at 12PM ET, which will be a collaboration between Fair Carbon, Investable Oceans, and ORRAA.
At Piccadilly Lights in London on 20th April - 22nd April, there will be ocean & space film screenings, in addition to conversations with astronauts & ocean explorers.
The Ocean Tech Summit + HH during SF Climate week will be happening on April 23rd at 2PM PT.
Register for the Ocean Hackathon 2025 that will be taking place from October 17th-19th in Paris. They will be hosting an informational webinar on April 23rd.
The Hydrospatial Infrastructure & Blue Economy Summit, part of the Geospatial World Forum 2025 in Madrid, Spain, will take place on April 24-25, 2025, focusing on the digitalization of ocean economies; register by April 15th.
The One Ocean Science Congress will be in Nice, France, for June 4-6.
The 2025 UN Ocean Conference will also be in Nice, France on 9 June - 13 June.
The 2025 People and the Sea Conference will be taking place from 24-27 of June, with the theme focusing on “tensions, trade-offs, and transformations for the Ocean Decade and beyond”.
Attend the Advancing Marine CDR Summit this July 8-10.
The EAHN Thematic Conference on September 10-13th will be focusing on “The Built Ocean”. They have an open call for papers for the conference.
Learning
The Plan Sea Podcast has released the first part of their reflections on the Ocean Visions Summit from last month. The CEO of Ocean Visions also shared his summit reflections in this blog post.
Watch this video, which was a part of the Nippon Foundation Ocean Nexus project entitled “Listening to fishing communities on climate adaptation in the tropics”.
SeaAhead published an interview with the CEO of Kai Pono Solutions, a startup that aims to preserve the health of our waterways via storm drains.
In the most recent blog post by Ocean Nexus, author Aaron Padgett critically examines how initiatives like the BLUE Pacific Act employ environmental rhetoric to advance U.S. strategic and economic interests in the Pacific, often at the expense of Indigenous Pacific communities' sovereignty and traditional relationships with the ocean. The piece argues that such "blue" agendas mask militarization and resource extraction under the guise of climate resilience and regional partnership, perpetuating hegemonic control over Pacific futures.
Companies doing the work
OceanWell is building deep-sea water farms for freshwater production.