Year-round and at their flagship annual World Ocean Summit, they foster a global conversation on the greatest challenges facing the seas, inspiring bold thinking, new partnerships and the most effective action to build a sustainable ocean economy. Economist Impact’s World Ocean Initiative imagines an ocean in robust health, and with a vital economy. The Initiative concentrates on three cross-cutting levers of change —blue finance, governance and innovation — each of which concern the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ for a sustainable ocean, but most of all they explore the ‘how’.
Into this stressed ocean a new wave of investment in the ‘blue economy’ is emerging, encouraged by ambitious national ocean strategies. The opportunities to guide development that respects or better still restores ocean health are enormous, as are the opportunities for creating jobs, income and growth. Yet so too are the risks, to the ocean and to our own well-being. A ‘blue’ economy implies some measure of alignment between economic development and the health of the ocean. Early signs are, in most countries, that the ‘blue economy’ typically prioritises growth over sustainability. Even where there is an explicit intention to align the two, the gap between these differing objectives is wide.
The World Ocean Initiative will address this challenge. The past decade has seen a public awakening to the ocean. Turning this momentum into tangible gains, at scale, is the next step. We look forward to working with, and convening, policymakers, businesses and others who share a similar vision, expanding on the foundations of the World Ocean Summit to realise an ocean in robust health, and with a vital economy.
The World Ocean Initiative translates the momentum and focus of the World Ocean Summit into a year-round program on the ocean that leverages the full capabilities of Economist Impact, combining the rigors of a think-tank with the creativity of a media brand to engage a globally influential audience. Through carefully designed and sequenced research and knowledge-building, by convening decision-makers across the ocean space and with the power of The Economist Group behind us, we aim to build new outcomes-focused agendas, and new constituencies, across our levers of change—blue finance, governance and innovation. The World Ocean Summit beats at the heart of the World Ocean Initiative, providing an annual stage to mark progress across our own initiative, and elsewhere across the cutting edge of the global ocean agenda.
Eligibilities
- Researchers, early-career professionals, entrepreneurs and innovators with solutions to tackle some of the ocean’s greatest challenges, including for example marine pollution, overfishing and overexploitation of marine resources, unsustainable aquaculture, marine engineering and oil drilling, and destruction of ocean habitats.
- Individuals who have been recognized by local communities but not yet by the international ocean community.
- Individuals who are driving change locally and have innovative solutions we could learn from to scale ocean solutions rapidly.
APPLICATION PROCESS
- To enter the Ocean Changemakers challenge, applicants need to submit a short video of no longer than 1 minute in which they address the following question:
- “How are you contributing to the sustainable development of the ocean economy? How would you benefit from an ocean leader as a mentor?”
- The video should highlight how your work or academic study is creating innovative, viable, scalable and action-oriented business solutions to sustainable blue-economy challenges.
- The video should be sent as an unlisted video link on YouTube or Vimeo, or uploaded in a common video format, such as AVCHD, AVI, FLV, MKV, MOV, MP4, WEBM or WMV.
For more information click "LINK TO ORIGINAL" below.