2022 Ocean Hackathon Recap

The Ocean Hackathon is an annual global event hosted by Campus Mondial de la Mer to amplify innovative ocean solutions and create a community of ocean-focused leaders driven by innovation.

Dive into the highlights from Sustainable Ocean Alliance's successful 2022 edition of the Ocean Hackathon and learn more about our innovative participants. 

The second edition of the Ocean Hackathon was a splash! 

Sustainable Ocean Alliance had the unique opportunity to connect like-minded innovators and build scalable solutions that will restore the health of our ocean. From Dec 2-4 2022, SOA welcomed 30 participants from all over to compete in the U.S. Edition of the Ocean Hackathon in Sausalito, CA to help solve 5 key challenges threatening the health of our ocean.

Participants had access to 15 top-tier mentors and jury members to support their inventive solutions to tackle the greatest threats facing our ocean. We were honored to also partner with the Mayor of Sausalito Janelle Kellman and the Center for Sea Rise Solutions to make this event localized and memorable for the community we gathered.

After 48 hours of hard work in developing the next big idea in ocean innovation, the winners were announced:  

1st Place – Ocean Regulation and Monitoring in Coastal Cities led by Cascais Municipality 

Team: Grace Chung, Daniela Laborinho Schwartz, Peyton Moore, Gabriela Fernandes, Joel Antonio Güity Zapata, Joshua Prentice, An Nguyen 

2nd Place – Electrification of Maritime Vessels led by Sausalito Working Waterfront Coalition

Team: Greg Thomson, Allison Chow, Malte Niebelschuetz, Rachel Koh (SOA Intern), Cassidy Campbell Mueller

3rd Place – Quantify Seaweed Farms with Satellite Imagery led by SOA Partner Environmental Defense Fund

Team: Andrew Middleton, Bodhi Patil, Connie Lin, Janeth Jaen, Casey Hogue, Sebastian Velasquez

Our other two teams offered innovative solutions to their ocean challenges with great passion and creativity: 

AI for Coral Bleaching Monitoring led by SOA Microgrant Recipient Reef Support

Team: Xander Peterson, Violet Sinarkar, Erika Woolsey, Hannah Lochan, Alex Merkle-Raymond, Tosha Grantham

Offshore Wind Planning and Habitat Restoration led by SOA Startup ARC Marine

Team: Ami Everett, Amber Sparks, Kelsey Krach, Chloe Orland, Sandra Fogg, Lauryn Magno

With SOA’s support, the winning team will get to travel to compete in the grand finale in Brest, France February 2023. All teams and participants were invited to apply for an SOA Microgrant and to join SOA as either a Mentor or Young Ocean Leader.

Throughout the weekend, the value of convening SOA’s global community was evident all around us. We were thrilled to welcome SOA Partners and Mentors to the program as jury members, Hub Members as event participants, Ecopreneurs as challenge owners, and Mentors as key supporters throughout the Hackathon. This event was truly a convening that represents the power of our work as a global Alliance dedicated to ocean leadership and generating creative solutions to protect our ocean. 

THANK YOU to all of the participants, mentors, and parnters for giving us hope for the future of our ocean.

We are so excited about each of the incredible solutions developed during this Hackathon, and we are here to support you every step of the way.

Hear what our participants had to say about the program:

"The Ocean Hackathon was a forum for brilliant young people to apply their talents to solving very difficult challenges in ocean conservation.  I was very impressed at how quickly the challenge team learned about the nature of the problem and even about nuanced technical challenges, then set about quickly overcoming them."

"I've been following SOA for years and it was amazing to finally join an event that was so well organized and flowed throughout the weekend with such an incredible challenge team."

“I very much enjoyed working with the team and was impressed both with the progress they made over 48 hours and the final outcome! I’m curious to see how the prototype will evolve and am happy to continue supporting the team if helpful.”

“The Hackathon enabled me to connect and collaborate with incredible ocean leaders across multidisciplinary fields of ocean innovation, taking my skill set for generating ocean solutions to the next level!”

“The Ocean Hackathon was one of the most joyful and productive ways I've interacted with climate change in a long time. I left feeling so much more hopeful about the potential for climate action!”

“I had so much fun at the Hackathon! I met amazing people and got to collaborate with an incredibly talented and smart team that cared deeply about sustainable ocean initiatives. The energy in the room was infectious! I left feeling inspired and ready to jump into our team's project.”

Special thanks to the following for making this event the success it was: 

Main Sponsor: Bank of the West

Partners: Mayor of Sausalito, Center for Sea Rise Solutions

Photographer: Juliette Leonard

Prize Partner: Mission Blue

Caterers: Portside Catering and Davey Jones Deli

SOA Dream Team Staff Members