Environmental monitoring
ODF Sweden supports Baltic Seabird AI/UX Hackathon
Ocean Data Factory Sweden (coordinated by SCOOT) will support the AI/UX Hackathon about the Baltic Sea Guillemots (“Sillgrisslor”), taking place on November 21-22 in Gothenburg. ODF Sweden will be in the Hackathon jury and our partner SMHI will deliver local oceanographic data.
The Guillemots are fascinating seabirds high up in the food chain. They can tell us a lot about the state of the fish and the rest of the Baltic Sea ecosystem. Gathering and annotating data is a heavy task for the scientists of the Baltic Seabird Project. In last year’s trial, huge leaps were made with the help of citizen science. The live stream hosted by WWF produced some 1300+ comments and insights. With the use of AI, recognition of individuals and frequent events could be automated, leaving the extra-ordinary and rarer observations to researchers and citizen science.
Register and more info here. Deadline for registration is November 7.
ODF Sweden will deliver learning and support digitalization in marine environmental management
ODF Sweden (coordinated by SCOOT) is now gaining pace! First innovation cycle, lasting to end of 2019, will focus environmental monitoring and management. We will deliver learning and support for digitalization in marine environmental management to the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM). The collaboration between ODF Sweden and SwAM is a part of the ”Three Archipelagos” project. We are excited about this opportunity.
Are you interested in ODF Sweden? Do not hesitate to contact its director Robin Teigland or its coordinator Torsten Linders.
National Research & Innovation Agenda for Underwater Technology
SCOOT is active in SubTechSweden, a network of actors who want to strengthen innovation in underwater technology in Sweden. SubTechSweden now releases NRIA-U 2019 (National Research & Innovation Agenda for Underwater Technology). The agenda has a very clear main recommendation: Sweden needs “a joint programme for underwater technology, funding and coordinating basic research, applied research and demonstrations (TRL 1 – 6)”. NRIA-U 2019 is an updated version of NRIA-U 2016.
SubTechSweden emphasises that the underwater innovation area can help to meet the UN sustainability goals, the Government’s Maritime Strategy and Sweden’s underwater capability (decided by the Government to be a “significant national security interest”). NRIA-U 2019 mentions specifically the need for underwater technology in ocean science, monitoring, spatial planning and management. The achievements of SCOOT’s flagrobot AUV Ran under the Antarctic ice shelves are mentioned as a good example of innovation, together with platforms for infrastructure inspection, illustrated with MMT’s Surveyor Interceptor.

SCOOT enters project AutoMonIn – Autonomous Monitoring of marine Invasive species
Chalmers University of Technology will lead a feasibility study aiming for “ an early warning system for invasive species based on DNA- methods, tailor-made to find species on alert-lists .”
The goal is to enable a transition from the traditional manual monitoring methods to the newly developed and coming methods based on automation and DNA-technique. This will be highly valuable to organisations conducting environmental monitoring and other stakeholders with an interest in the spread of invasive species, e.g. harbours and the shipping industry.
SCOOT enters AutoMonIn in order to support innovation and automation of marine environmental monitoring, in this case specifically biodiversity. Several of the technology elements in AutoMonIn are generic and can be adapted to ocean monitoring of other parameters than invasive species.
The other project partners are SeAnalytics AB, University of Gothenburg (SCOOT), Research Institutes of Sweden. Kickoff meeting was held April, 2019, project ends January, 2020. External funding comes from Vinnova (Sweden’s Innovation Agency). The aim of the current feasibility study is to prepare for a for a larger collaboration project. SCOOT hosts the project web page.