The winners of World Ocean Initiative’s ‘Women and the ocean: Changemakers challenge’ have been announced. The competition, sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, aims to showcase leading female change makers and entrepreneurs, often overlooked, who are working to develop business solutions to achieve ocean-related sustainability and offering innovative solutions to some of the ocean’s greatest challenges. The goal is to ensure that women are visible across the ocean supply chain and their contribution is recognised and elevated.
The winners are:
- Dr Katie St. John Glew, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Southampton and the Marine Stewardship Council, UK.
Dr Katie St. John Glew, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Southampton, is a marine spatial ecologist with a passion for impact driven research and implementing innovative science solutions to address the current challenges facing our environment. She completed her PhD in marine biology in 2018 and has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Southampton collaborating with the Marine Stewardship Council, looking at bringing her academic work in fisheries traceability to a commercial market. She has extensive experience engaging with scientists, government agencies and industry at both a national and international level.
- Dr Ling Ka Yi, Chief Scientific Officer/co-founder, Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore
Dr Ling Ka Yi, Chief Scientific Officer/co-founder, Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore, is a developmental biologist with over 10 years expertise in tracing and studying stem cells during development. Ka Yi received the prestigious A*STAR’s National Science Scholarship and graduated with a Bachelor’s and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She worked closely with stem cell and developmental biology experts like James Thomson, Davor Solter and Barbara Knowles. Following graduation, Ka Yi did her postdoc at IMCB, A*STAR. She is an active science communicator since her days in Madison and frequently takes part in Singapore’s science outreach events. She also did a podcast called “Science Now” and “Life after PhD” with fellow scholar. Ka Yi is passionate about marrying her experience in biotech research and her love for food to produce sustainable food products. In August 2018, she co-founded a cell-based crustaceans startup called Shiok Meats, along with Dr Sandhya Sriram.
- Olga Lucía Caro Jácome, CEO and co-founder, Procoreef, Colombia
Olga Lucía Caro Jácome, Sustainable Entrepreneur, CEO and co-founder, Procoreef, Colombia, is an ecologist with 18 years of professional experience and extensive experience in design, execution, and coordination of conservation projects. She has experience in coordination and management of projects with multilateral organizations such as Global Environment Facility – GEF, World Bank, the Program of the United Nations for the Development – PUND and the German Agency of Cooperation GIZ. She has also been a coordinator in the adjustment and execution of Public Policies of the National and District. Olga has also worked as the coordinator of special projects of the Biodiversity Institution of Investigations Alexander von Humboldt. She is the co-founder and currently the executive director of Procoreef.
To help bring the three changemakers’ ideas to life, they will receive guidance from renowned female ocean leaders as part of a 12-month mentorship programme and present their vision for a blue economy at the World Ocean Summit in Tokyo, Japan, on March 9th-10th 2020.
Since 2012, the World Ocean Summit has become the main global event at which policymakers, business leaders, civil society and scientists gather for important discussions about the blue economy. The term ‘blue economy’ describes a sustainable ocean economy that harnesses marine ocean resources for long-term economic development and social prosperity while protecting the environment in perpetuity.
Applicants were invited to submit a short video of no longer than one minute in which they addressed the following questions: ‘How are you contributing to the sustainable development of the ocean economy? How would you benefit from an ocean leader as a mentor?’
The three mentors are:
- Maria Damanaki, global ambassador for oceans, The Nature Conservancy. Maria will mentor Dr Katie St. John Glew and her idea to verify fish catch locations and improve traceability.
- Maren Hjorth Bauer, chief executive and co-founder, Katapult Ocean. Maren will mentor Dr Ling Ka Yi and her innovation in cell-based clean meat.
- Susi Pudjiastuti, former minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, Indonesia; founder, PT ASI Pudjiastuti Aviation. Susi will mentor Olga Lucía Caro Jácome and her project to protect and restore coral reefs through eco-tourism.
Martin Koehring, head of the World Ocean Initiative, said: “Women play a significant role in the ocean economy. However, their innovations rarely receive the support, recognition and publicity they deserve. Our challenge shows that there are incredibly talented women changemakers out there with great ideas to solve some of the ocean’s biggest challenges, such as overfishing, the decline of coral reefs and plastic pollution. Hopefully, our challenge and the mentorship programme will help to support and scale up the contributions of these inspiring women changemakers.”
Maria Damanaki, global ambassador for oceans, The Nature Conservancy, said: “Women are at the forefront of–and disproportionately affected by– major ocean emergencies like climate change, ecological crisis in coastal areas, plummeting fish populations, and illegal fishing. Globally, there has been enormous momentum on gender parity. If we translate that into action for a healthy ocean, we have a chance of tackling the crisis facing the largest life-sustaining ecosystem on the planet. I’m proud to be supporting these inspiring changemakers in their work to develop innovative business solutions to one of the biggest challenges of our time.”