Ocean Exchange 2019

Hi and greetings from Fort Lauderdale, Florida! Its been warm and sunny.
This blog post is continuing the intelligencehunt #5 blog post. Those who know, the team I was part of won the intelligencehunt competition in Oslo this summer, and our prize was to attend the Ocean Exchange as VIP guest in Fort Lauderdale. This happened a few weeks ago. Our team travelled to Miami and enjoyed a couple of days of the sun and the beach before heading to Fort Lauderdale. In Fort Lauderdale we got to attend the Ocean Exchange. The Ocean Exchange is about finding sustainable solutions for maritime business. There were three different awards, the collegiate award of 10 000 dollars, the Orcelle and Neptune awards, each 100 000 dollars. The collegiate award, based on sustainability, was like Lion’s den or Shark tank (the TV shows), where each finalist got x minutes on the stage and afterwards the jury got to ask questions. The audience then got to vote the winner. Orcelle and Neptune awards had more specific criteria, the Orcelle award was given to a “solution that can make our (WW) logistic operations more sustainable by advancing high- efficiency or zero- emission technologies that are commercially viable”. The winner was NOON Energy that is using carbon dioxide for batteries. The Neptune award was given to a company that had a “solution that advances our understanding of the ocean and that helps minimize our impact on these resources, even while using them for human benefit, resulting in more resilient bodies of water, including healthy marine life and coastlines”. The winner was Opus 12, they convert carbon dioxide into raw materials. Opus 12 won the collegiate award a few years ago.
We also got to see Fort Lauderdale from a water taxi, when we toured the canals of the city. The world’s biggest boat show was the same week as the Ocean Exchange, so we got to see some very expensive yachts. We got to network, meet new people and hear good speeches.

For anyone interested, the next intelligencehunt final is in Turku in January.

BR,
Chia Palkonen
Materials processing technology

Links for more information:

https://www.seafocus.fi/ (External link)
https://www.oceanexchange.org (External link)
https://www.opus-12.com/ (External link)
https://www.cyclotronroad.org/noonenergy (External link)