welcome everyone to this webinar on new technologies and innovations for ocean conservation while we wait for our audience to be admitted to this webinar we will be playing a short video on visis which is providing our platform and logistics today for which we are very appreciative since january after many successful months the world summit on the information society forum 2021 has reached the final week gathering stakeholders from around the world the wisest forum is the largest gathering of the ict for development community providing a platform for stakeholders to collaborate cooperate and coordinate highlighting the important role of the wisest action lines and achieving the united nations sustainable development goals this virtual forum has featured more than 200 exciting workshops and sessions addressing topical themes related to ict for development proposed by our stakeholders during the open consultative process discussing matters ranging from the role of mentorship girls in tech and women leaders during the ict and gender mainstreaming track to the role of assistive technology in the educational development of children with special needs persons with vision impairment among others in the icts and accessibility for persons specific needs visit our website for full access to previous sessions featured during the forum in addition to these tracks the wisest forum 2021 also features a high level track which gathered cross-sectoral high level representatives to discuss the roles of icts as a means of implementing the sustainable development goals and targets the high-level track culminated this week with a ministerial roundtable as well as an executive summary provided by the wisest forum chairman on the outcomes of the high-level track additionally we heard summaries from the high-level track facilitators about the key trends challenges and opportunities shared by high-level speakers during their policy sessions additionally we are pleased to announce that the wisest forum special track on icts and older persons initiated a special prize this year entitled the wisses healthy aging innovation prize which recognized the leading innovations that specifically address the needs of 60 plus people to achieve and sustain an active and engaged life as they age the winners were congratulated this week for their impressive efforts in addition to this exciting new development the winners of our first virtual hackathon co-organized with the global coalition on aging were also announced the innovations focused on how aging in today's increasingly digital world can be enhanced through the use and application of icts the innovative efforts of our whis stakeholders were also displayed through this year's 10th jubilee edition of the whistles prizes with the 18 winners being revealed this week together with the 72 whistles prize champion projects in addition the winners of the wisses photo contest were also announced chosen out of an impressive array of photos portraying the role of icts and achieving the sustainable development goals as the forum culminates this week we would like to thank our stakeholders for their participation we are delighted to see the creation of lasting partnerships made during the forum which will enable meaningful change around the world using icts for sustainable development we would also like to extend a warm thank you for the efforts and contributions of our partners without whom the wistas forum 2021 would not be possible thank you and we look forward to the successful final day of the wisses forum 2021. excellencies ladies and gentlemen hope you have enjoyed the highlights video of recently held versus forum 2021 the organized would like organizers would like to clarify that in addition to the mentioned 15 000 participants who have joined the forum live through the zoom platform an impressive number of 50 000 accumulative presence was recorded up to the date of all the stakeholders who have joined live stream sessions live through the visit social media and have viewed the recorded sessions of business forum 2021 website i use this opportunity to invite all the ex to all to explore the forum's agenda with 25 to 50 health sessions and promote its many outcomes my name is dhvani trivedi i am a vicis youth in ict campaigner and studying electronics and communication engineering at bvm engineering college in india i am passionate about using artificial intelligence and information and communication technologies to help bring out a better world i am delighted to be a moderator for this webinar on new technologies and innovations for ocean conservation to help mark the world ocean's day the organizers itu and unesco wish to express their gratitude to the permanent missions of dominican republic and portugal for being the co-sponsors of the webinar the theme of world oceans day 2021 is life and livelihoods in order to protect the marine life and sustainably manage the ocean it is imperative to highlight the catalytic role of sciences and technologies also catalytic role is the role of the youth and when youth uses science and technologies to help tackle global and local challenges it is even more powerful i am excited to hear about the examples and innovations for the oceans on this webinar today and hope all generations will be motivated to do more for the oceans a couple of housekeeping notes our time is short just one hour so we will be need we will need to be strict on time i just invite the audience to post their questions using the q a function at the bottom of the screen and speakers to keep an eye on the questions posted and feel free to type the answers during the webinar if time allows at the end of the webinar we will be giving panelists an opportunity to answer and make a question and answer the questions or make a final comment also you will find the bios of our wonderful speakers on the business website where you registered for this webinar without further ado it is now my pleasure to hand the floor to his excellency mr jose blanco conde who is the permanent representative of the dominican republic to united nations for his opening remarks dear ambassador you have the flaw thank you thank you very much and and good morning to all especially all the panelists the audience of course and our good friend ambassador francisco duarte a great champion on these issues and of course unesco and itu for the invitation it's a pleasure for me to to be with you today the dominican republic deeply valued this opportunity to promote a reflection in which motivated by hope but aware of the enormous challenges we faces lead us to take all the necessary measures for the conservation of our planet and our oceans at this juncture we believe we need to rethink our overall perception of well-being and development and in that process it is crucial to make use of all available tools to achieve from dominating nature to coexisting with it and more importantly preserving it in this regard new technologies and innovation in planet and ocean conservations needs to be put in at the service of all on equal terms this is why this event is so timely for a country like ours a small island developing state and in this in the context of the current climate crisis this is essential from research to monitoring to forecasting early warning and early actions technologies play a central role for the survivor of our live livelihoods and the achievements of the sdgs live below water is not an exception there are two essential vectors that can direct us towards the recovery of the planet and of those who inhabited it today the first is a strictly moral which we call responsible consumption and production the sex the second is absolutely scientific and technological the first refers to the reduction of a negative impact through the reduction of human appetites and our common sense of responsibility and ambition to address the negative impact the second refers to the creativity of the human intellect to stop the damage already inflected through technology and innovation and then make those technologies accessible to every country we are honored to have partnered with organizations and nations such as unesco itu and portugal sincerely committed to the recovery of the oceans but it distinguishes us even more sharing this disposition with the jews with the generation that already reaches us with the extended arm to take the torch of the new commitments as for the way forward the second vector speak us clearly the good use of technology is promising and encourages us to move decisively in concrete steps let us continue to advocate for more ambitious decisive and just collective actions to protect our oceans all together for us and for the future generations thank you very much to all thank you very much ambassador for those important framing remarks and inspiring examples it is now my pleasure to invite his excellency mr francisco duarte lopez who is the permanent representative of portugal to the united nations i request you sir to make the opening remarks you have the floor thank you very much duane good morning everybody first of all our gratitude to the permanent uh represent representation and the permanent representative of the dominican republic my dear colleague and friend ambassador jose blanco and to ioc unesco and to itu for having partnered with us today never before had humankind so much reliable and detailed information about the importance of the ocean for our planet and for our well-being as well as about the challenges that threaten the ocean's ability to perform those fundamental roles science has been key in helping us develop this understanding about the ocean and its critical importance for our shared future assessments on the state of the ocean based on robust scientific research have supported the development of our knowledge about the health and about the role of our ocean and the stressors on its ecosystems it has raised awareness of the natural and cultural significance of the ocean and it has helped promote ocean literacy and the culture of conservation restoration and sustain sustainable use of our of our ocean equally crucial as we learn more and more and more about the ocean and about the impact of our actions on marine biodiversity science has gained an increasingly prominent role in policy making and in support of decision making however many gaps and challenges remain we must continue working on the development of our understanding of the ocean system we must do better in terms of equitable access to science and technology across regions we need more ocean science to help us to address impacts from climate change from marine pollution from the loss of marine species and from the degradation of marine and coastal environments and we must do more in terms of ensuring that science informs policies and supports stakeholders in their quest to develop solutions to address the decline in ocean else because ocean science is at the center of sustainable development and is part and parcel of the transformation of the relationship between humankind and the ocean we portugal decided alongside kenya as co-hosts of the second u.n ocean conference to propose focusing the conference on the theme science and innovation for the same reasons we were amongst the first and and stronger supporters of the un decade of ocean science u.n decade of ocean science for sustainable development information and communication technologies have played a special role in the strengthening of ocean science and its application icts are essential to promote knowledge hubs and scientific networks they are crucial to enhancing the sharing of scientific data best practices and know-how they can help feed and support decision-making and they have a key part to play in the promotion of ocean literacy and education including because of their wide dissemination among youth i again commend our co-organizers happy world ocean day thank you again thank you very much ambassador for your key opening remarks and highlighting portugal's commitment to preserve the oceans it is now my pleasure to introduce a video message from dr vladimir benin who is the executive secretary of unesco intergovernmental oceanographic commission mrs team if you could kindly play dr raymond's message please excellencies the ladies and gentlemen i would like to thank the dominican republic portugal the international telecommunications union and of course our mother organization unesco for organizing this important event which is taking place on the world ocean's day and this is i think very symbolic that uh countries that are so close to the ocean and also uh the itu that is looking at the earth from the space and sees the ocean organize this uh this event on focus focusing on information and communication technologies and so every world oceans day is a celebration of the role of the ocean this topic to this year is life and livelihoods and i would like to give you a little bit of history so let's go back to 2015 the united nations proclaims uh the 2030 agenda and 2016 is the year when the world ocean assessment of united nations stated that the human kind was running out of time to start managing the ocean sustainably and 2017 was the year when the governmental geographic commission of unesco proposed to the united nations general assembly to conduct the decade of fortune science for sustainable after that after the confirmation of the decade we have worked diligently and very very intensively with many partners to create the decade the plan for the decade and in 2020 uh the 75th general assembly of united nations proclaimed agreed with the plan and the proclaimed decade now is a reality so already five months have elapsed and very soon we've announced the first set of decayed programs so indeed the role of information communication technology is critical for the success of the decade and i would like to say that it is embedded in so many programs that we are going to announce that it is it will be difficult for me to list them all i would like to say that of course uh in the conditions of pandemic we we continue the design of the decade the co-creation of science using of course quite already ordinary means of speaking uh through zoom actually i'm recording my message to you through zoom and many other uh platforms for communication but of course this is uh a deeper and much more uh scale scalable contribution in the sense that you know we really need to observe the ocean for that we need germination we need uh channels radio channels for uh basically sounding the ocean they also need uh video channels for uh for observing what is happening in the ocean now this is a critical thing for measuring what the the the exchanges that happen uh between fishery vessels so we can monitor what is happening and make fisheries more sustainable and there are some other uh approaches and solutions so what we see in the future is a managed ocean that is on on the basis of plants which are in turn are based on on the good science and this science has observation and telecommunication as its core so we populated the ocean with now 4 000 different argo flows that using icg technology to communicate their data this information is used for predicting the state of the ocean for informing well i'd say all people in the world about about weather that is coming about tropical cyclones so we see that the core of the new world when it comes to the ocean will be creation of a data system or i would say data ecosystem that will be in digital way and objectively transparently and very authoritatively presenting the state of the ocean in the past and the current and also predictions for the future and ict technologies are the core for that so from observations to data processing to uh to uh creation of data says describing the future state of the ocean then to guiding the decision-making and this all is about ict technology and then convincing people that you need to act like this so this is the vision of the ocean science of the future and the ocean science of the future will be a key existentially important driving force for living better and implementing the 2030 agenda so with that i would like to thank again the organizers of this important webinar i thank dr davinan very much for his video message where he explained the sustainable measures using ict to manage and preserve oceans now i would like to invite miss joanne wilson who is the deputy director of radio communication bureau at international telecommunication union i request dear ms joanne to give your opening remarks i thank you very much duwani your excellencies ladies and gentlemen good morning good afternoon thank you to the dominican republic portugal unesco and itu for the opportunity to participate in today's event that celebrates the 2021 world oceans day today i'm focusing on the role of icts and particularly the significant developments in earth exploration satellite services uss eess the availability and use of data from eess systems have far-reaching effects for everyone on the planet beyond it's used for studying the state of health and well-being of our oceans and ocean life and the impacts of climate change the data is also used to assist meteorologists in predicting the weather and forecasting and monitoring a variety of natural disasters a un report determined that in the 20 years between 1995 and 2015 90 of all disasters were weather related it found that the world is paying a high price for weather-related disasters with nearly 2 trillion us dollars in losses and more than 600 000 deaths in those years alone what has happened in the period since that report was issued in the atlantic hurricanes matthew 2016 irma 2017 maria 2017 michael 2018 and dorian 2019 all category 5 storms wrecked havoc wreaked havoc on the americas with the combined cost of more than 200 billion dollars for those five storms alone the situation in the pacific was equally difficult with 2018 and then 2019 each being record-setting years in 2019 which was ravaged by the super typhoons halong wootsip lukima and hagavis it was the longest and costliest pacific typhoon season on record ees systems tracked those storms and their data was used to predict the paths along with the place and time of landfall providing precious time for evacuations and preparations how much more devastating would those events have been that the early warning systems enabled by earth observation satellite systems while ess systems are operated by only a few countries the data and data products that result from their operation are distributed and used globally particularly by national weather services and by organizations monitoring and studying climate change these systems and their data or or should be treated as vital global resources so how does it work eess systems carry passive and active spaceborne sensors spaceborne active sensors are instruments that obtain data through the transmission and reception of radio waves they're basically radar systems on space form platforms amongst several types of active sensors altimeters are used to measure the precise height the precise height of the ocean surface and its features and scatterometers are preliminary primarily used to determine the wind direction and speed at the ocean surface by contrast spaceborne passive sensors are very sensitive receivers known as radiometers that measure the electromagnetic energy emitted and scattered by the earth and the chemicals constituents in its atmosphere passive remote sensing system instruments operating on earth observation satellites are looking down at the earth's surface and atmosphere and are susceptible to interference from transmitters operating on or near the earth the surface of the earth by their very nature passive centers sensors are attempting to receive and process very weak naturally occurring radio signals at specific frequencies determined by molecular physics if these signals are corrupted by interference it is not possible to use another frequency to obtain the data the information the data is corrupted or lost these sensitive active and passive receivers can only operate successfully due to the allocation of specific and unique frequency bands in their respective radio services and the regular regulatory protection supported them by special provisions of the radio regulations these protections must be given effect in national regulations and while the radio regulations establish the maximum level of emissions that are allowed for the protection of passive bands national authorities may consider setting even more stringent levels if they believe it would be beneficial to do so significant advancements and investments in new and active active and passive sensors the growing numbers of satellites including their those deployed in constellations and formations along with new fields of application and increasing bandwidth requirements for transmitting data are among the factors that lead to a growing demand for frequency spectrum use for space sensing good science requires good data advancements and investments in the ess systems and new sensors should yield good data but sadly that is not assured and should not be assumed due to the global nature of earth observation and remote sensing system the effective operation of these systems and maintaining the quality and availability of their data should the data they provide requires coordinated and national national action to enforce the provisions of the radio regulations again good science requires good data action at the national level is required to ensure that the investments in ees systems will achieve that result again thank you very much to the dominican republic to portugal to unesco and my colleagues at the itu the opportunity to participate in this event and share this important message thank you thank you very much ms joanne you truly said good science needs good data it is so wonderful on how innovatively digital sensors and radio communication technologies are being used as a key resource in disaster management tackling climate change for sustainable development we now turn to our panelists who is um first up is professor peter hoggin of institute of marine research in norway professor how can developments in communication and information technology be utilized by ocean science community and the public to support effective ocean protection and sustainable production thank you very much for this and thank you for having me here uh all courtesies observe ambassadors and permanent representatives everybody in the audience it's a it's a pleasure to be in this forum uh where i've listened to interventions on the high level importance and potential of information and communication technologies and also about some of the technical aspects of satellites and instruments and the role for science so i'm a scientist and ocean scientist and i'd like to try and think about the role of information and communication technology in developing science and science again to support conservation and sustainable use because these two things go together and in fact uh um it's quite important to recognize that some of the international initiatives uh for uh changing the narrative of the ocean so that it becomes clearly understood how crucial the ocean is to the world in terms of climate change in terms of sustainability in all of the 17 dimensions of sustainability but but let me start by by noting that my own area of work ocean science is is not a very big science it's not a huge portion of the science that takes place in the world in fact the intergovernmental oceanographic commission that was that the home institution of vladimir riyabani who spoke earlier produces something called the global ocean science report and the last version came a few months ago stating the science the state of ocean science around the world as a basis for capacity building and transfer of technology and so on and one of the things you can read in that this report is that government funding to ocean science around the world is on average only between one and two percent of the national spending to science and for many of the uh countries who try to say that the ocean is crucial to everything this is a very low fraction and and in fact it it you can argue it needs to be increased but i think in terms of uh speaking about the subject of today how can we use information and communication technology we need to recognize that ocean science is not the big applicant it is not the big sort of forerunner in developing specific technologies in other fields we need to use the the tools the satellites uh the the the the the means that that evolve in a way that is beneficial for science we need to be able to accept those new technologies and in fact if we look at the development of ocean science over the past century there was a very influential report produced by the u.s national academies of science after the turn of the century showing that all the major step forward in ocean science understanding happened driven more or less by technology application of technology from other fields to our subject of interest i won't go too deeply into this but every oceanographer knows what the ctd is a ctd is a conductivity temperature depth probe it measures salinity and temperature by measuring the electric conductivity that came around in the 1960s and 70s before that we had to make people had to take water samples for every simple measurement now we could measure it directly and that was because of consumer electronics which developed this kind of tool similar thing in acoustics we need to apply it we need to apply it to polar regions to deep sea regions very in inaccessible and difficult regions so we need to recognize that and that means we need to be receptive to these technologies we need to create a culture of being able to take up developments that take place elsewhere be truly interdisciplinary and i think in so doing there is also a need for ocean science in order to support support ocean conservation to be linked to the public to make sure that the public understands the value of the ocean uh vladimir benin mentioned agenda 2030 and others also stg 14 on the ocean is a is a very powerful tool for that but if you look at the attention of the world leaders to the different sdgs and several studies have been done on that std 14 consistently ranks very low in fact at the very bottom of which sdgs are discussed in big board rooms of big companies in high-level political meetings and so while we say that the ocean is crucial to the global economy it's crucial it can play a larger role in feeding the world it can play a larger role in providing renewable energy to the world it does play an increasingly important role in transportation and so on people don't recognize this and we don't recognize the potential and so the sdg 14 has a very indirect positive effect on many other stds so we need to have the public on board and i think that's an area where also ict can be very useful because we have this thing with citizen science making ordinary citizens help creating collecting observations from the ocean we know i know there are networks of people in the indian ocean for example using their their smartphones to make photographs of the state of coral reefs submitting those in if we have good systems for you know artificial intelligence working with these kind of actors we can make a better science we can provide better basis for for for uh for for conservation as well so i i want to say that i think all of these various uh things link so very closely together i've had the fortune of being working also with the portugal and other countries in the high-level panel for sustainable ocean economy and we're trying to bring this message through we need a new narrative for the ocean it's effective protection sustainable production and also equitable prosperity or distribution of the goods and that is a thing for society it's a thing for policy it's a thing for uh for science we need to work together so uh what can we do we need to uh to work together we need to exchange this information we need to make sure that we take on board all of the good technology that is developed in other fields and we need to make sure that we tell the right narrative about the ocean that we inform about the crucial role of the ocean in sustainable development so thank you very much with that i hand it back to you thank you thank you very much professor for your inspiring remark and mentioning the power of ocean science and its community and highlighting the use of ict and ai for protecting oceans and to help achieve the sustainable development goal 14 which is life below water thank you very much let us now turn to miss stephanie avalos who is the chief of new business development at ichthyon limited miss stephanie reverse around the world funeral plastic waste into the ocean at a very alarming rate it causes harmful effects to ocean animals coastal economies and human health what does ichthyon do and plan to do to help solve this issue over to you ma'am hi dewani hi everyone who's listening to us today um it is a great pleasure for me to represent ichthyon and to be here with everyone on such a special occasion it can is an award-winning company that develops technologies and solutions to reduce plastic flow into marine environments we are a company that was born out of the laboratories of imperial college london in 2017 and is now working in two countries both in the uk and in ecuador we just see white all right so i think most of you know the the problem that we're facing um over two 12 million tons of plastics enter the oceans every year um and from this amount about 60 to 80 percent is coming from rivers um or is traveling through rivers and coming from cities and through either direct or indirect management of of waste um of the waste that's coming from the cities and ultimately affecting our oceans one of the other main issues that we've identified is that less than five percent of materials around the world are recycled and this costs um the world about three trillion or over three trillion euros a year not just in in losses and in damages but also in of course productive activities that suffer from plastic going into the oceans so what is diction doing to solve this problem as i mentioned we are a technology producing company so one of our main technologies or one of the technologies that we have most developed is the azure technology the azure technology is a is our technology for rivers it works on three different modules it has a barrier it has a natural ditch that captures the material and then it has a device that through a conveyor belt extracts the material we'll look more into that now this is an image of our technology being tested in the medway river in the uk um again the azure is a is a system that we designed to be self-powering so it works on on the energy that it produces on its own it works on seven working principles first the system unpacks from a trailer then the anchors are deployed and a barrier system is attached the floating boom barrier directs the waste towards one of the river the river bends and the mobile conveyor then extracts the waste this material is then deposited into containers these containers are then loaded into trucks and the trucks head to a recycling or multiple recycling facilities this technology is unique in that it works on it doesn't work on the river but actually on land so it has the capacity to move and to service different areas it also has a capacity to extract about 1.3 tons of material every hour so that's up to 80 tons of waste per day um currently we are deploying a three-year project with the support from the benioff ocean initiative and the clean currents coalition um this project is being deployed in manawi ecuador and on the puerto viejo river this is an image of our system working on the puerto rico river as you see there's a barrier system um you also see the side we're slightly see the side where the waste accumulates and then um further on the right side you'll see where um our mechanic system extracts the the waste through a conveyor belt this is the type of material on the on the lower image you'll see the type of material that arrives daily to our site um you have a mix of organics and in organics we'll look into the types of materials that we're receiving more in depth um as i move into the presentation it's very important to mention that for this project and for the projects where we're deploying or we aim to deploy the azure system we have four main phases that we um implement first we have the studies and permits phase where we use high definition imaging imagery to really look into the life cycle of the river the life cycle of the river allows us to see where the river begins and how it um and how what the different vectors of pollution are throughout its course it also allows us to really figure out what the best position for the technology is which is what happens with with this project on the vehicle river this uh phase we we went on during the first or the second um trimester of 2020 so right in the middle of that pandemic um and then for the implementation phase which was really from q3 um in 2020 to the first trimester of 2021.
we were really working on everything that has to do with sampling of this of this new site having to do with the manual extraction of the material for sampling purposes and manufacturing our one-to-one or full-scale actual azure mechanical extraction technology throughout this process we're also and in a very important way developing a data collection system which through imagery allows us to um generate an automatic automated imagery collection system which is then added to the technology and this is this is one of the most important features that we offer with our technology and that adds the most value to the project it's not just about extracting the material it's about really knowing what's coming and being able to provide that information to policymakers to private companies to um the community so for us um it's been it's been a an important focus and of course and this is more of a cost-cutting element which has to do with communication generating engagement at different levels with the different stakeholders i wanted to show you some images of the type of waste that we classify we get anywhere from these soccer balls ping pong balls to shoes tires we've been getting a lot of masks and of course we've also been we've also seen dead dead farm animals as well come to our barrier the material that we see in most quantity has to do with foam materials that are used in restaurants we also see a lot of plastic bottles mainly coming from single use pet and we also see a lot of cutlery these images that we collect um are basically we need to take about 30 images of each single item in order to be able to program our system and as i mentioned before the images that we collect have a uh an important purpose of being able to connect to the community and to really let them know what types of materials we're receiving be able to engage also with um the base recyclers who are the basically waste miners who are the first link in every single chain of recycling in the country helping them improve their technical capacities their association capacities in order to tackle this problem together we also engage with local governments providing them with the information that we're gathering so that they're able to use it for regulation and control we also engage with the communities along the river um helping them you know improve their access to services for waste management so that they're not then throwing it into the river and of course we also engage with coastal communities so that we can um support cleanup before it reaches the ocean and then very quickly i just wanted to show you the area of impact for us this is the mangrove in la bocca which is the the translation in english is the mouth lavoca is the community that lives right on the river mouth and these images show you the type of materials that are accumulating on the mangrove and the amount of material that accumulates on the mangrove every year they lose one community member due to cleanups because of drowning at least one community member due to drowning they are honestly hands-on trying to get um or to solve this problem and for us it's it's a pleasure to be able to support their their work with the technology that we're able to install and i just wanted to also share with you how important the mangrove ecosystem is not just to this area but to the world over 50 species of local and migratory birds and reptiles depend on this mangrove ecosystem this lavoca is located at the puerto rico river mountains as i mentioned and it leads to the pacific ocean the debris that arrives at the mangrove lavoca doesn't just affect the local ecosystem and human population but it also impacts in an important way the biodiversity at the galapagos islands about 30 percent of the material that floats into the galapagos islands the debris the plastic debris that flows into the galapagos islands um is coming from the continental area of ecuador so it is our mission as a company to be able to support in stopping this flow of plastic into the pacific ocean and ultimately ending up in such an important and unique place um our invitation is for all of you to join us in saving the oceans together you can follow our progress that are different at our different social media accounts and of course i wanted to thank all the organizations and institutions that made this event possible thank you for letting us share what we're doing and in a very important way bringing attention to the type of materials that we see floating through our rivers 80 tons of waste from the reverse per day it's truly just amazing many thanks miss stephanie for sharing such an inspiring story about ichthyon and highlighting some key concerns it is so impressive that ict is being useful at every single aspect and it is truly amazing on what ichthyon is doing that was really inspiring i would recommend the audience to check out their website its theon.com to explore more about their projects and the work and get motivated to preserve water bodies i would now like to also remind the speakers to keep an eye on the q a box to feel free to type the answers to the questions that they see let us now turn to miss alexia barrier who is a wendy globe race skipper so miss alexia you have been sailing in the ocean since almost 17 years what are your communication solutions while sailing in the ocean what changes have you seen in the ocean environment in recent years hello thank you for the invitation and i'm proud to be with you today so yes i'm a sailor since i'm three years old and i'm sailor for science since more than 10 years now you know what what i can see in the the ocean is uh not really funny it's more waste more treasures every year i can see more fishing boats more cargo ship more traffic more pollution and less animal but the good news is that we can do something and i decided to do something 10 years ago creating the foundation for my planet i decided to ask to protect ocean because you know what the good year i'm sailing more than 200 days during the year so i spent a lot lots of days i see sailing and racing i did more than 200 thousand miles at here racing so i can be really a tool for science i decided to install instruments on my boat from my racing boat like a a new trunk called thermal salinograph that takes that as a c surpass on salinity and temperature what can i do with these data i send them to a european program to scientists in france for example iframe i'm working with them and as a communication i use the satellites to spend all the data that takes every day every 24 hours i can i can send a file with many data for example my last around the world trip was a volleyball it's the most extreme race in the world because it's single-ended without stop-over and without assistance it took me 111 days to go around the world and i bring more than one million dollars at sea for scientists and bad data helps for example to calibrate satellites observing ocean because we need we really need in-situ data to calibrate satellites and to complete all the data's we can have from scientific boards from cargo ships from airplanes animals so i'm like a opportunity boat for science i also can do some deploying i deploy profilers like argo profiler i can send you this image so i can share my screen here so this was during the bombing club in the big south close by the kerguelen island it's a algo profiler and we have a program with kids called the adopt-a-flop and the keys uh we are signing the name on this compiler and so this profiler will leave for more than three years in the big south in the pacific move with the currents and send data to satellites so we can have uh that as entity with this kind of profiler so we are now many skippers doing that during the races we have a partnership with usa unesco and also a program called ocean up and the class in moka is the clash of the solo sailor going around the world is also working hard to have more instruments on the racing boats and to be able to deploy more more profiler where we really have a lake of a lack of data like in the big south in the south of the indian and in the south of the pacific so we can all do something and what i do as a racer as a sailor is being a tool for science and for research thank you very much miss alexia for your valuable eye-witnessing perspective on changing oceans and the key role of icts especially using the satellite data let us now turn to our last speaker for the event ms tatiana lawrence who is the vice president of international and regulatory at iridium miss tatyana i understand that you have a brief video to share with us on your company's work and technology and its use in support of oceans please do go ahead and then mr tiana i also understand that you will be sharing some updates at the end of the video over to you ma'am thank you very much twenty and good morning everyone and thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk about iridium and what iridium does uh on the ocean and protecting ocean program irvidium is a truly global satellite system consisting of 66 lower orbiting satellites and iridium is very proud to provide connectivity to applications that help solve problems to protect our oceans so i would like to firstly share a brief video with you can you see so plastics pollution in the oceans is unfortunate terrible reality we are surrounded by plastics and most of these plastic waste items are highly buoyant which allows them to move for thousands of miles causing a heavy toll on wildlife so the ocean cleanup is really the first ever project of this scale to read the oceans of plastic and so cleaning these garbage patches with conventional methods like vessels or nets would take centuries and it would cost billions of dollars so the ocean cleanup developed a 600 meter long floating tube with a three meter skirt underneath catching up on all the plastics and collecting it and this without endangering one vibe out there and so of course for such an autonomous system reliable broadband connectivity is an absolute must so the way iridium became involved in this i gotta give a lot of credit to boyan slat who is the genesis behind this effort boeing came to our offices here and he had a technical solution that was very impressive when we started the project with the ocean cleanup team it was a no-brainer for us that we wanted to play part in it so the iridium's involved is uh is pretty significant in this project the system is outfitted with iridium's pilot providing its open port service this system requires constant communications it's floating in the ocean so it needs anti-collision systems to avoid other ships that are passing by the operators are comfortable and confident that the iridium system is going to allow them to be in constant communication with their system the ocean cleanup system is a passive system that moves by the forces of nature the wind the currents and so reliable coverage is really key and iridium can support the ocean cleanup systems wherever they go secondly if you look at the oceans it's a harsh environment there's strong winds there's several meter waves there's a heavy rain condition so especially in these weather conditions real time communication with the system is key we rely on trusted and capable partners like ast who play a key role here in this project and thanks to their value-added services like the integra platform the ocean cleanup can monitor in real time what data flows are going back and forth to this autonomous system iridium is very involved in environmental and sustainability efforts around the globe we're heavily involved in the polar regions our iot systems are deployed on the ice sheets they can measure the effects of climate change on the ice sheets themselves the weather above the ice and then they also measure and analyze and evaluate what's going on underneath the ice sheets we also our iot systems are heavily deployed around the globe that's also used to analyze salinity levels and detect what some of the pollution levels might be in the different areas around the world so the new surface technology is exciting in many ways it will establish a new gold standard in l band communications in terms of reliability performance and affordability and so the ocean cleanup is going to take advantage of the new surface services as they are scaling up the project to 60 systems by 2021. we think we can make a difference with this project and we think with our unique capabilities we provide the fundamental communications that this system needs in order to be successful [Music] thank you so much miss tatiana thank you very much oh uh thank you very much uh and i would like to just um to add this uh this great ocean cleanup project is still an experimental stage and but iridium is very proud to support this endeavor of course and i just want to mention a couple of more um areas where medium is involved to protect the ocean polar regions uh uranium uniquely qualified to breach the scientific and business community uh due to its one-of-a-kind service coverage in that in the arctic in antarctic to help researchers to improve the assessments by providing real-time data for tracking sea levels temperatures water salinity and others uh another project i'd like to mention is a tsunami warning system deep ocean assessment and reporting of tsunami dart which utilizes iridium connectivity to help detect and monitor tsunami waves in all the world's ocean and lastly uh iridium is the official communication partner for the mayflower autonomous ship uh which gathering critical environmental data uh regarding climate change uh ocean acidity plastic pollution marine mammal conservation and iridium provides a critical real-time communications for this autonomous research vessel with that i would like to thank you very much the things the organizer and this great panelists for giving me the chance to present thank you so much miss tatiana for your amazing remarks and truly inspiring video it is exciting to see this example of how ict can and is making a difference for the oceans as time is short we unfortunately will need to wrap up the session now so i would like to conclude by thanking very much on the behalf of itu and unesco the missions of dominic republic and portugal to the un for co-hosting this webinar our terrific speakers for sharing information about their important work and inspiring solutions and the audience for tuning in the recording of this webinar will be available on the business forum 2021 website my name is dwani trivedi and it is my pleasure to moderate this important session also as one of the vicious youth campaigners a new initiative which was launched during the visas forum 2021 i invite you all to join our campaigns and stay tuned for more news from the vicious youth the session is now concluded happy world oceans day
2021-06-11