At Propeller, we constantly seek opportunities to inspire ocean-climate innovation and entrepreneurship. Our Hackathons help identify opportunities for research teams from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) to solve problems faced in the market and uncover connections between industry and academia.
The theme of our second Hackathon at WHOI was biodiversity solutions in the offshore wind industry, hosted in partnership with Ørsted.
We look to industry leaders like Ørsted with problem statements to spark our innovation sessions. A global clean energy leader, Ørsted develops, constructs, and operates offshore and land-based wind farms, solar farms, energy storage facilities, and bioenergy plants. Ørsted is the first energy company in the world with a science-based net-zero emissions target, and is forward-looking in its efforts to minimize environmental impacts of its activities.
Ørsted has made a commitment to have a net-positive impact on biodiversity on all new renewable energy projects commissioned from 2030 onward. We want to help make that a reality.
The Challenge
The Hackathon was centered around three main challenges to biodiversity and environmental monitoring activities:
- How do we better measure and monitor biodiversity impacts?
- How can offshore infrastructure be better designed to encourage abundant, biodiverse marine ecosystems?
- How can emerging approaches improve the efficiency and effectiveness of ecosystem restoration?
After an introduction to the offshore wind industry by the Ørsted team, scientists at WHOI were given the opportunity to present the latest developments on biodiversity monitoring techniques from their labs. Among the scientists that spoke were Anthony Kirincich, who runs a newly formed research project aimed at improving the wind forecast models over the ocean; Heidi Sosik, who is the leader of an NSF-funded Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program studying the ecology of the Northeast continental shelf; and Annette Govindarajan, who develops new methods of detecting marine organisms using environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling and analysis.
The afternoon kicked off with a fireside chat between Ørsted’s Head of Program Execution, Americas, Troy Patton, and Propeller’s Brian Halligan featuring questions around entrepreneurship, the future of offshore wind, and advice for founders and startups. The conversation encouraged all of us that great ideas for companies often start in a lab.
After lunch, we broke off into small groups to brainstorm solutions to the problem statements presented earlier by Ørsted. Ideas circulated related to ecosystem monitoring for biodiversity, including species presence and abundance, enhancing protection of marine mammals by using new technologies to understand their location and distribution, and potential approaches for co-locating kelp farms with offshore wind projects.
Looking Forward
The outcome of the conversations between Propeller, Ørsted, and WHOI scientists was a slew of new ideas for solutions to complex ocean-climate problems. Not all threads will turn into technologies, but if even one does, the day will be a success. We plan to continue enabling these conversations between WHOI and industry leaders in order to surface new technologies from entrepreneurially-minded ocean scientists. Stay tuned!
To keep up to date on our next Hackathon as well as our other events, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter @PropellerOcean, and subscribe to our newsletter here. For founders interested in potential investment opportunities with Propeller, please check out our Pitch Us form.
