Sea of Opportunity

On the night of December 2nd, beside the glow of the Big Fiddle at the Joan Harriss Pavilion, Cape Breton’s young and dynamic tech sector, regional business leaders, top educators, fishery professionals, and Government agencies came together for Tech in Fisheries, the opening event in Louisbourg Seafoods’ larger initiative to bring two sectors together to explore challenges and potential solutions. “We are really excited about the large turnout, there are so many people from both the public and private sectors,” says Glen Fewer of Louisbourg Seafoods.  “We were really hoping there would be lots of interest around a fisheries/tech sector event and the opportunities that exist.”

They weren’t disappointed, at 7pm over 130 attendees filed into the Kavanagh Room as the pianist played the first Christmas songs of the season. The empty chairs were quickly filled, and spectators stood beside rows of occupied seats and eagerly awaited for Fewer and Adam Mugridge to talk about fish. Well, all seafood actually. Glen and Adam are seafood experts, and marine biologists with Louisbourg Seafoods and the hosts of that evening.

 Once the lights went down and the projector heated up the audience’s attention was quickly drawn to the multiple areas of the fishing industry in which new tech-savvy resources and skillsets, are presently applying modern efficiencies and innovations to age-old practices. Fewer and Mugridge discussed how Louisbourg Seafoods has already invested in innovations with a number of projects already underway. Among these were a GIS platform for monitoring harvesting efforts, generating revenue from by-product streams, and transforming seaweed into nutrient-rich bio-stimulant. “100 years ago, if you wanted to make more money catching fish, you would catch more fish,” remarks Mugridge. “Now, sustainability and regulations make finding efficiencies, new markets, and new products more important than catching more fish.”

“This was the best event of its kind that I've seen in a long time” remarked Jim Peers, a long-time Sydney resident.

Among the speakers at Tech in Fisheries was Monica Jain from the San Francisco based Fish 2.0 competition. With $180,000 in prizes, Fish 2.0 challenges innovators to create solutions to improve the social and environmental sustainability of fisheries. Equally important are the investments and business developments that come from this competition, something Louisbourg Seafoods will implement within their next steps.

Tech in Fisherieswas a success at connecting and welcoming our new Startup Community to the traditional seafood industry, but Louisbourg Seafoods would like to go further than just networking. Spurred on by The Ivany Report and One Nova Scotia, this initiative has a broader scope. Louisbourg Seafoods will hold another event in January at CBU’s Verschuren Centre to launch SEA++, a competition of their own. SEA++ will invite seafood industry experts and business leaders to put teams of creative minds to the test. The teams will be comprised of all skillsets and backgrounds, and will choose from a number of challenges the industry faces. These challenges will be real-world issues faced by an array of fishing industry sectors such as harvesting, logistics, marketing, science, etc. The teams will have no prior knowledge of what challenges will be put on the table, and will have one month to work on their solutions under the tutelage of world-renowned business mentors, subject matter professionals, and leaders of industry. Following an elimination round, the SEA++ finale will consist of an intense mentorship bootcamp which will result in the final pitches of the competition.  

The goal of the competition is to open a window of potential for the next multi-million dollar innovation to be conceptualized, developed, and implemented right here in Cape Breton, and allow a new set of skills and perspectives access to the practices of an age-old industry.

"What's so exciting is that this is the start of a journey that sees our great traditional industries marry up with the great start up activity that we have blossoming on the island" stated Permjot Valia, CBU’s Entrepreneur in Residence and one of the guest speakers of the night.

This initiative acts in accordance with the ONE Nova Scotia 10 Year Collaborative Action Plan by making long-term investments in youth, career development, and industry cooperation, while making the seafood industry more profitable and sustainable within Nova Scotia. “In hosting the event, Louisbourg Seafoods did what the Now or Never report called on Nova Scotians to do: show leadership!” remarked Ian McNeil of The Prosperity Framework.

Based upon the results of this initiative, this framework could be applied to other industries within Nova Scotia, such as forestry or agriculture. “Two bicycle-shop owners invented flight,” remarks Scott Samson, another Louisbourg Seafoods marine biologist. “You never know where the next breakthrough is going to come from.”