blue climate initiative
OCEAN  
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Meet our winners!
 

Meet the Winners of the Ocean Innovation Prize

The wait is over.
We are thrilled to announce the three winners of our US$1 million Prize to support innovations that mitigate climate change through ocean-related strategies. These creative, impactful solutions all harness the enormous potential of seaweed in sequestering carbon, reducing plastic pollution, cutting methane emissions, and producing clean energy. The prize money will be split evenly among the three winners. Here they are!

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oip 3winners
Biopac

Dr. Noryawati Mulyono S.Si.
Cofounder

Indonesia

Seaweed-based solution for a plastic-free ocean

We innovate and manufacture seaweed-based bioplastic through a sustainable production process that requires no hazardous chemicals as well as cost, energy, and water-efficient. We address climate change problems directly, through seaweed cultivation that reduces CO₂ emission, and indirectly, by substituting the conventional plastic with our truly biodegradable products.

SMO solar process

Dr. Nicolas Ugolin
Founder and lead scientist

Guadeloupe

Carbon capture and energy from Sargassum

SMO Solar Process is an innovative process using solar power to turn biomass or carbon-based waste into highly valuable products with negative CO₂ balance: activated carbon, biochar, clean hydrogen, electricity. Our project is to use SMO technology to turn invasive Sargassum algae into a carbon sink, together with producing valuable outputs.

Symbrosia

Alexia Akbay
Founder & CEO

USA

Seaweed feed supplements reducing livestock methane emissions by 90%

Symbrosia has developed a novel seaweed feed supplement that reduces livestock methane emissions by over 90% at minimal feed inclusion rates. If 10% of the world’s cows added a sprinkle of our seaweed feed additive to their diets, 200 million tons of CO₂ equivalent would be avoided every year.

"Your support has created long term impacts, not only for Biopac, but also for seaweed farmers and the whole ecosystem when we spread our products globally. Many thanks."

Dr. Noryawati Mulyono 
Biopac  
Indonesia  
September 16, 2023

Honorable Mentions

Two inspiring wave energy companies earned an Honorable Mention from our High-Level Judges. Discover their work below.

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CorPower Ocean

Patrik Möller
co-founder & CEO

Sweden

Clean energy from ocean waves

CorPower Ocean brings innovative wave energy technology, converting ocean waves into clean electricity. Wave energy help offsetting the intermittency of wind and solar power, accelerating the transition to a 100% renewable future. Our technology is based on decades of research, and inspired by the pumping-principle of the human heart.

Eco Wave Power

Inna Braverman
Founder & CEO

Israel

Clean electricity from ocean and sea waves

Eco Wave Power has developed an innovative and patented technology for the generation of clean electricity from ocean and sea waves. The global utilization of the immense wave energy resource can drastically reduce the effects of fossil-fuel-based energy production on climate change while sustainably meeting global energy demand.

Thank you to our High Level Judges and Expert Evaluators!

The Blue Climate Initiative received 236 applications from over 60 countries. The winners were selected from among 21 Semi-finalists by a distinguished panel of High-Level Judges.

oip judges
Craig Cogut

Craig Cogut

Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Pegasus Capital Advisors, L.P.

Richard Bailey

Richard Bailey

Chairman and CEO, Pacific Beachcomber S.C.

Daniela Fernandez

Daniela Fernandez

Founder and CEO, Sustainable Ocean Alliance

Françoise Gaill

Françoise Gaill

Emeritus Research Director of CNRS

oip judges
Margaret Leinen

Margaret Leinen

Director, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and Vice Chancellor for Marine Science at UC San Diego

Vladimir Ryabinin

Vladimir Ryabinin

Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and Assistant Director-General of UNESCO

Jyotika Virmani

Jyotika Virmani

Executive Director, Schmidt Ocean Institute

Our 21 semi-finalists were previously selected by a global group of 17 Expert Evaluators for their impact potential, innovation, commercial and scale potential, capacity and feasibility, alignment with Prize principles, and the value that the potential award would bring to them.

evaluator profiles
  • Alison Clausen
    Alison Clausen

    Programme Specialist at UNESCO - Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission

  • Bela Hanratty
    Bela Hanratty

    Managing Director, BlueWave Innovation Capital

  • Christian Vanizette
    Christian Vanizette

    Cofounder, Makesense.org

  • Craig Dudenhoeffer
    Craig Dudenhoeffer

    Chief Innovation Officer, Sustainable Ocean Alliance; Co-Founder of the Ocean Solutions Accelerator

  • Donna K Hazard
    Donna K Hazard

    Board Member and General Partner, SeaAhead; Board Member, New England Aquarium; Co-Founder and Board Member, Women Working for Oceans (W2O)

  • Elena Perez
    Elena Perez

    Ocean Resilience Lead, Ocean Action Agenda, World Economic Forum

  • Imogen Rose-Smith
    Imogen Rose-Smith

    Co-Founder, Combinate Capital

  • Loreley Picourt
    Loreley Picourt

    Secretary General, Ocean & Climate Platform; Global Shapers member; UNFCC Co-focal point for Ocean and Coastal Zones for the Marrakech Partnership-Global Climate Action Agenda

  • Louis Metzger
    Louis Metzger

    CEO and Co-founder of DeepViews Inc.

  • Megan Morikawa
    Megan Morikawa

    Global Director of Sustainability, Iberostar Group

  • Mevin Kistnassamy
    Mevin Kistnassamy

    Founding Partner, Blue Pelican Capital

  • neil davies
    Neil Davies

    Executive Director of the University of California Gump South Pacific Research Station (Moorea); Research Affiliate at the Berkeley Institute for Data Science

  • Nina Boys
    Nina Boys

    Senior Director, Beyond Green Travel

  • Teresa Christopher
    Teresa Christopher

    Principal at TRChristopher LLC, Former White House Ocean Policy Advisor

  • Thierry Chopin
    Thierry Chopin

    Professor of Marine Biology, Seaweed and Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture Laboratory, University of New Brunswick; President, Chopin Coastal Health Solutions Inc.

  • Trisha Atwood
    Trisha Atwood

    Associate Professor, Utah State University - Department of Watershed Sciences and the Ecology Center

  • Tony Charters
    Tony Charters

    Vice Chair, Global Ecotourism Network; Director, Asian Ecotourism Network; Honorary Life Member, Ecotourism Australia

What happened?

The winners shared the $1 million prize and attended the Blue Climate Summit. To fond out more about the progress that the prize money helped to fund, visit the web sites of  Biopac, SMO Solar Process, & Symbrosia.

Blue Climate Summit

Collaborators

The Prize is presented by BCI as part of an endorsed programme of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and is designed to advance the goals of the Ocean Decade and the Sustainable Development Goals. The Prize is presented in collaboration with the Sustainable Ocean Alliance.

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