We face a global crisis.
More than eighty percent of all life on Earth dwells in our ocean, producing over half of the planet’s oxygen. Three billion people derive their protein from seafood. One in eight people depend on the sea to earn their livelihood. Eighty percent of international trade travels on the ocean. The ocean is crucial to the global carbon cycle, shuttling gigatons of carbon each year between the atmosphere and plankton. The ocean regulates our weather and our climate. For these reasons and many more, human survival is intrinsically linked to the health of the ocean.
Yet the ocean is under dire threat from human activity and the relentless effects of climate change. UNESCO estimates that 60% of the world’s major marine ecosystems have been degraded or used unsustainably. Thousands of ocean species are threatened with extinction.
Nick Wise is founder and CEO of OceanMind, a non-profit organisation dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans. Using satellites and artificial intelligence, OceanMind empowers effective fisheries enforcement and enables more responsible seafood sourcing, increasing compliance and sustainability. Building on this success, OceanMind is now developing AI to detect modern slavery on the oceans, particularly in fisheries, and to detect the desecration of war graves through unauthorised undersea salvage.
Nick has been designing large scale, highly secure software solutions for over 20 years, using innovative techniques focused on market needs. Before joining the ranks of social entrepreneurship, Nick’s journey saw him starting an Internet security business, as CTO of a mature SME, and managing product development in a billion-dollar multinational. As a DRK Entrepreneur, Nick now empowers people to solve planetary issues with technology.
