Ocean Hackathon 2023 solutions to solve the challenges of the ocean

                This year, Chile, with one of the ten largest maritime territories in the world and an extensive coastline of more than 6,000 kilometers, will participate for the third time in the Ocean Hackathon (OH) competition. This initiative accompanies the UN challenge called "Decade of Ocean Sciences for Sustainable Development". 

The name given for this year's competition is "Oceans at Risk", and it will be held in the Biobío Region, specifically at the University of Concepción, from November 17 to 19.

                The event consists of a call for scientific professionals from different areas who are interested in the marine ecosystem. The objective is to develop prototypes to solve challenges in a period of 48 hours. In this case, there will be six national initiatives, composed of predetermined teams.

                The local final of this competition will be held on Sunday, November 19 and only one of the six initiatives will be chosen as the winner. Members of the winning team will have the opportunity to travel to the World Grand Finale organized by the Campus Mondial de la Mer in Brest, France, with flight and accommodation expenses paid. In this instance, they will face 14 finalists from different parts of the world, and the best three projects chosen in the European country will receive financial support to continue with their development.

For the third consecutive year, this event is organized by the French Embassy in Chile, the French Institute of Chile, and Inria Chile, with data provided by the Data Observatory and for the first year has the support of the COPAS Coastal Center.

• CON01 - Bioremediation Aquaculture:

It is a solution created by Arnoldo Javier Carmona and is based on nature for the restoration of sandy seabeds subjected to anthropogenic activity and bioremediation aquaculture, based on nature for the recovery of SO sandy seabeds. This initiative deals with bioremediation aquaculture, which involves the use of aquaculture techniques and species with bioremediation properties, such as the algae agarophyton chilensis. This practice has been successful in Quintero Bay, where the algae was grown near sewage outfalls in 2003 and has adapted. This seaweed helps to address five risks by absorbing CO2, fixing nitrate and phosphate, restoring sandy bottoms, and providing habitat for various species. Its harvest can be marketed even in polluted areas, as it does not affect the final product. It also promotes diving tourism and sport fishing, employs women, contributes to food sovereignty and is a natural solution to sandy bottoms and problems derived from human activity.

> What additional competencies does the CON01 team require?

The creator of this solution wants to create a company to provide this service and establish a monitoring system to verify the bioremediation of the product, so he is looking for people with skills such as computer developers, oceanographers or socioeconomists.

• CON02 - Ask the Ocean:

Is a challenge by The Millennium Institute of Oceanography, which involves an innovative web application that embodies the consciousness of the sea and allows users to ask written questions to the ocean. It uses advanced artificial intelligence to generate answers from the ocean's perspective, revealing its thoughts and emotions. The App proposes to foster collaboration and avoid environmental risks.

> What additional competencies does the CON02 team require?

To achieve the goal of creating an interactive web application, developers, graphic designers, marine biologists, and an engineer are required.

• CON03 - Blooms Forecast: Overcoming Cloudiness in Chilean Patagonia:

Is an initiative of Benjamín Arteaga, which aims to create an algorithm that predicts the development of algal blooms in the inner sea of Chiloé, and that is resistant to the loss of satellite data due to cloud cover in the area. Copernicus data, such as sea temperature, and climatic factors will be used along with scientific parameters to stimulate phytoplankton behavior and calculate the possibility of blooms in advance. The tool will benefit marine management authorities by enabling preventive measures and mitigating impacts on the ecosystem.

> What additional competencies does the CON03 team require?

The objective is to develop an application or website with a traffic light that reflects the risk of bloom based on the results of the algorithm and, for that, oceanographic, physical, marine biology, and computer science knowledge is needed.

• CON04 - Krill License: A Biogeophysical AI Model for Managing Krill Ecosystems:

Climate change negatively impacts the ocean and its regulation capacity, being especially critical in Antarctica due to the commercial exploitation of Antarctic krill, essential for carbon sequestration and the food chain. The lack of data on its abundance limits management and conservation policies, therefore Cristian Cofré's proposal is to develop a predictive model based on neural networks to estimate the krill population in the South Shetland Islands, using real data and previous analysis, evaluating it with CMIP6 climate projections. This will allow a better understanding of the relationship between krill and their environment, inform science-based policy, and present the results on an interactive website. It is also planned to expand the model to other marine regions or species in the future. In the competition, models will be trained and the website with detailed visualizations will be developed, and the team is already formed.

• CON05 - Let's go to the beach:

Is a challenge created by Valentina Nuñez, which involves addressing the problem of beach degradation caused by human activity, which leads to the accumulation of waste and loss of biodiversity, generating eco-anxiety. The creator's idea is to produce a working prototype of the Let's go to the beach application that includes information on the state of the beaches, citizen comments, education, and an attractive user interface.

> What additional competencies does the CON05 team require?

This will demonstrate how the App can address beach degradation and user participation in coastal conservation and will require a computer developer and graphic designer to achieve this.

• CON06 - LTCO / Caring for Our Oceans: Waste Edition:

Is this year's latest solution generated by Cathie Guillousx, which addresses one of the main problems affecting marine ecosystems, which is pollution by waste, especially plastics, which can be ingested by marine animals and cause them harm or even death. To address this concern and raise public awareness of this problem, LTCO (Let's Take Care of our Oceans) The Waste Edition, an ecological board game designed to address the life cycle of waste in relation to the oceans, from its production to its disposal, is presented.

> What additional competencies does the CON06 team require?

This project aims to contribute to the conservation of biodiversity and the habitability of marine ecosystems by quantifying the risk of pollution, and to achieve this, designers, marine biologists, and computer programmers, among others, are needed.

The call of this competition is to the Chilean innovation ecosystem, researchers, students, and universities, to be part of these teams and develop these solutions to contribute concretely to the protection of the oceans.