C4IR Ocean changed its name to HUB Ocean in early 2022.
This annual report uses the foundation´s present name – HUB Ocean.
Annual Report
2021
Joint Statement
2021 was the year of emancipation for HUB Ocean when we truly started on our path to change the fate of the ocean by unleashing the power of data, technology, and collaboration.
HUB Ocean is an independent, non-profit foundation. We are a new organization with a small, highly capable team who is innovating, learning, adapting, and evolving – at pace. Our goals are ambitious, and our journey to impact is made real by taking one step at a time.
HUB Ocean is a member of the World Economic Forum’s C4IR Network and leads the Ocean Data Action Coalition of the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy. We are also a keen supporter and participant in the UN Decade for Ocean Science. These global ocean engagements have allowed us to grow and soar to new heights in 2021 and helped us scale our impact and efforts for the ocean.
We are grateful for the industry leaders, scientists and policymakers who joined us as partners this year and shared their networks and expertise to change how ocean data is accessed and used. We made great strides on the Ocean Data Platform, which is at the heart of all we do, advancing both the infrastructure and data ingestion. We reached important milestones for ocean impact, especially in seafood and shipping emissions. However, there is still a long way to go to achieve a data revolution with global reach and impact and 100% sustainable ocean management by 2030.
We anticipate a dynamic and impactful 2022, with newly-appointed CEO, Kimberly Mathisen, and several new and exciting projects underway.
We urge you to join us in this effort to create the change we need for one healthy ocean.
— Øyvind Eriksen, Chairman, HUB Ocean.
— Gry Ulverud, Acting CEO at year’ end, 2021.
Ocean Impact
What we have set out to do
A healthy ocean benefits society by absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, providing oxygen, feeding billions, and supporting livelihoods. Due to climate change, pollution, plastics, and overfishing, it is now under serious threat. Our mission is to change the fate of the ocean by unleashing the power of data, technology and collaboration, advancing ocean health and wealth. We will enable this by becoming the world’s ocean data collaboration hub.
To unlock ocean data, we are building the Ocean Data Platform.
The Platform will offer a powerful solution for aggregating and making compatible all forms of ocean data, and making it widely available on a cloud-based infrastructure so that everyone can draw upon the insights of this data to accelerate the world toward a better and greener path. That is our first level on Ocean Impact.
Our team worked hard to realize our goal of unlocking data successfully hitting our milestones in two key areas in 2021:
AQUACULTURE
Norway’s seafood industry is the second-largest export industry. The solution that we built in 2021, the lice data portal, assists the aquaculture industry in the fight against salmon lice by enabling easy access to statistics, guidance, and knowledge.
The solution receives data from 1000 Norwegian salmon farming industry locations. Unlocking this data will help develop solutions to reduce the industry’s footprint, secure biodiversity and increase access to nutritious food.
SHIPPING
In our quest to drive forward zero-carbon shipping, we developed a prototype of our Ship Emissions Estimator and enhanced the Estimator with new data and features that provide charterers, cargo owners, and brokers with the necessary data to compare vessels for chartering those with the lowest CO2 footprint.
Our tool is now a very powerful, credible, independent provider of emissions for the entire global fishing fleet, and the use-cases for this insight are rapidly emerging.
Lighthouse Strategy
Towards the end of 2021, we dug deeper and began the work of structuring our activities and projects into use-cases with specific purpose and pathway to impact.
We call them Lighthouses.
Each Lighthouse addresses a concrete ocean problem to solve and is being co-developed with relevant partners and domain experts.
We will create solutions such as applications, data products, frameworks, and platform features to build engagement on key topics and deliver value to every prioritized ocean challenge.
We will define these focal points in early 2022, but the leading concepts are:
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UNLOCKING
Unlocking and sharing data that sits in the hands of businesses and industries
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ACCELERATING
Accelerating green energy production though a digital, environmental assessment tool
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CREATING
Creating data foundations for sustainable ocean management and marine spatial planning
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EMPOWERING
Empowering scientists with access to AI tools and structured data from multiple sources
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MONITORING
Monitoring risk in the ocean and coastal areas
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EXAMINING
A comprehensive and objective look at emissions in the shipping industry
Ocean Data Action Coalition
Answering the call from the Ocean High-Level Panel
Since December 2020, we have been mandated by the High-Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy to co-lead the Ocean Data Action Coalition (ODAC) with Microsoft. Anchored in the private sector, the Coalition aims to unlock and share data for sustainable ocean management worldwide. All HUB Ocean partners support the Ocean Data Action Coalition. Accenture and BAHR have set aside dedicated resources to support the Coalition.
In 2021, the ODAC hosted two major roundtables involving executives from 30 international global industry groups linked to the ocean. Together, HUB Ocean and these companies identified challenges and potential solutions to boost data sharing. Discussions focused on trust, governance, traceability, and creating value through data sharing.
To make the Ocean Data Sharing Revolution a reality, we still have a long way to go. In the months and years ahead, we will continue working with the High-Level Panel for Ocean Economy, other key impactful coalitions, and partners on this most important task
We accelerate data-driven solutions for producing more sustainable blue food, renewable energy, green transportation, and science-based ocean management.
— HUB Ocean
Ocean Data Platform
We made significant progress on the Ocean Data Platform, advancing data ingestion and the overall technical capabilities.
We successfully integrated some of the world’s most important oceanographic datasets. Scientists and data scientists have validated the significant improvement we have made in enabling them to access and utilize these major open data sets.
Additionally, we demonstrated how to analyze and input real-time ocean data into the Platform. The pilot was carried out using floating buoys from SINTEF Ocean and NTNU through their Ocean Lab initiative.
We made good progress on the Ocean Data Connector – a powerful data science environment for exploring, analyzing, modelling, and visualizing data in the platform and from other external sources. With the Ocean Data Connector, we are bringing the data to the cloud and adding compute power to the data.
With the first launch of the Platform in 2022, the Ocean Data Connector will enable quicker access, integration, and analysis of the data in the cloud and remove limits related to computer power and storage.
As we advance, we will continue to collaborate closely with our partners to build the community who will use these tools and build on them to impact ocean health and wealth positively.
Our new partners in 2021.
In 2021, we were excited to partner with organizations that share our values and ambitions.
We joined forces with the law firm BAHR in a collaboration that seeks to break down the regulatory barriers to data-sharing.
We entered a partnership with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) to create trust in the data collected from autonomous vehicles.
Partnering with SINTEF and OPS Sjømat/Sjømatdata was a way to anchor our action in developing more sustainable, ocean-based solutions.
Through our Ship Emissions Tracker, we partnered with Mercuria to increase fleet emissions transparency and Vanora to provide bulk cargo with the lowest carbon footprint.
Finally, Accenture joined our center in a partnership that we expect will help increase our global scale and impact.
“We are extremely fortunate to work with such capable and forward-leaning partners and look forward to continuing and expanding our collaborations for one healthy ocean.”
- Acting CEO, Gry Ulverud
This year we have welcomed seven new partners
People
HUB Ocean’s diverse group of experts draws on various personal and professional backgrounds.
We doubled our staff size between January and December 2021 from 11 to 22 people. Of these, ten people are working directly on the Ocean Data Platform.
Gender parity was achieved with 11 out of 22 staff members being women. The number of nationalities increased with our colleagues coming from Germany, Nigeria, Canada, Norway, Pakistan, Indonesia, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Financial Status
The efforts and generosity of our partners made 2021 an impactful year.
While the Aker family remains our primary source of income, we increased our revenue from strategic partners, including Microsoft, Accenture, Mercuria, and BAHR.
We have secured funding from the EU and public sector sources. Donations have also helped us advance our overall mission and fund specific projects.
Operating Expenses
Revenue
“We are looking forward to grow our Ocean Impact significantly in 2022. We hope you will follow us on our journey.”
— Acting CEO 2021, Gry Ulverud.
Ode to our Ocean
"The story of the ocean and the story of humanity are one and the same, a Great River that knows no borders and notes no lines, only ripples. While we might call it the Seven Seas, today we sing out your true name: The One Ocean”.
— excerpt from poem by Amanda Gorman.