Healthy oceans are essential for healthy growth. They provide food, water and livelihoods for billions of people. They connect our economies, enabling the long-distance transport of goods. They host critical biodiversity and help regulate our climate. Human activities are threatening the ocean’s health in a number of ways, from overfishing and the physical destruction of marine habitats to marine pollution and climate change. If we are to meet the needs of a growing global population and economy, we must fundamentally reinvent our approach to the ‘ocean economy’.
About the DNV GL and Microsoft Studio
Governments are already taking steps to ensure the protection of oceans, seas and marine resources, which is the specific focus of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) #14. The private sector is also beginning to mobilise, through platforms such as the UN Global Compact’s Action Platform for Sustainable Ocean Business. But there is still a long way to go if we are to meet the food and transport needs of a growing population without harming the ocean’s health. Meanwhile, we lack a standard measure for the ocean economy, and identifying the data that is needed to establish best practices, gathering and qualifying that data, analysing it and sharing it with those who need it, are all ongoing challenges in this growing industry.
At the Xynteo Exchange this year, DNV GL and Microsoft will host a Studio to tackle several of the most complicated and difficult challenges confronting the world’s oceans and our management of them. Leaders from business, policy, research and civil society will work together towards creative ideas for addressing those challenges, including getting better-quality data on the ocean space, sharing that data more effectively, leveraging new technologies, and using data to develop standards of practice for economic activities of many kinds in and on our oceans including marine food production and transportation.
On day one, we will interrogate the complex nature of the relationship between human activities and the health of our oceans; and explore how our capabilities could be brought to bear in understanding and managing the oceans and our impact upon them. On day two, we will identify potential interventions within these problem areas, with the aim of developing early-stage concepts for projects that can deliver both human and commercial value. Finally, we will select the most promising concepts to present in the Marketplace.
Date and time: 9 October, 1230 - 1730 & 10 October, 0830 - 1300
Location: DNVGL HG, Veritasveien 1,1363 Høvik, Norway (Building 3)
Speakers:
- Sturla Henriksen, Special Adviser on Oceans, UN Global Compact
- Klas Bendrik, Chief Digital Transformation Officer, DNV GL
- Kimberly Lein-Mathisen, General Manager Norway, Microsoft
- Siddharth Hande, Founder/CEO, Kabadiwalla Connect
- Karoline Sjødal Olsen, CEO and Co-founder, Blue Lice
- Vidar Helgesen, Norway’s Special Representative for the Ocean, Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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Ulrike Haugen, Chief Communications Officer, DNV GL