Winners Announced for the World Ocean Initiative's 'Women and the Ocean: Changemakers Challenge'

LONDON, Feb. 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The winners of the 'Women and the ocean: Changemakers challenge' have today been announced as:

• Dr Katie St. John Glew, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Southampton and the Marine Stewardship Council, UK.
• Dr Ling Ka Yi, Chief Scientific Officer/co-founder, Shiok Meats Pte. Ltd., Singapore
• Olga Lucía Caro Jácome, CEO and co-founder, Procoreef, Colombia

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.

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 winning video submissions can be watched at: oceanwomen.economist.com

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."

About the winners:
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, 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, 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.   

About the mentors:
Maria Damanaki is the global ambassador for oceans at The Nature Conservancy. She leads a global team focused on transforming how the world manages the ocean, including sustainable fisheries management, large-scale protection and restoration of coral reefs and other ecosystems, coastal resilience and a first-of-its-kind mapping and quantification of the full value of the ocean to people.

Maren Hjorth Bauer is the CEO and co-founder of Katapult Ocean. Maren completed an MSc in Finance and Accounting at London School of Economics (LSE) and a BSc from NHH. She has a strong track record from 10+ years in leadership positions within strategy, business development, and marketing. She is also an investor and board member in several startups. Katapult Ocean is an investment fund and accelerator that supports impact-driven ocean startups. Since Maren co-founded the company in April 2018, it has made 23 investments in innovative ocean tech companies from all over the world (fourteen countries, four continents). She is in the Advisory network for the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.

Susi Pudjiastuti is an Indonesian entrepreneur. She was Indonesia's minister of maritime affairs and fisheries under President Joko Widodo's 2014-19 Working Cabinet. She is also the owner of PT ASI Pudjiastuti Marine Product, a seafood export company, and PT ASI Pudjiastuti Aviation, which operates Susi Air charter airline.

About the World Ocean Summit
Since 2012 the World Ocean Summit has been the main global event at which policymakers, business leaders, civil society and scientists have gathered for important discussions about the blue economy. After Singapore, the US, Portugal, Indonesia, Mexico and Abu Dhabi, the World Ocean Summit arrives in Tokyo this year to advance new ideas on how to decouple economic growth from ocean degradation and build a new and sustainable ocean agenda.
oceansummit.economist.com

About the World Ocean Initiative
The Economist Group's World Ocean Initiative (WOI) fosters a year-round global conversation on the greatest challenges facing the seas and progress towards building a truly "blue" economy. This means harnessing ocean resources for economic growth while protecting the environment and ensuring social equity. The WOI builds on The Economist Group's mission to be the leading source of analysis on international business and world affairs. We have the capability to convene global audiences and world-leading experts, conduct new and insightful research, and hold politicians and businesses to account over progress towards a sustainable ocean economy.
woi.economist.com

SOURCE The World Ocean Initiative