SOEST News, first published April 24, 2024

In an effort to advance a sustainable blue economy in Hawaiʻi, the University of Hawaiʻi Climate Resilient Aquaculture Innovation Megahub (CliRAIM) and Hatch Blue, the world’s first aquaculture accelerator, hosted the AquaHack workshop in Kona, Hawaiʻi on April 18. The blue economy refers to coastal- and ocean-based industries such as aquaculture, biotechnology or blue carbon, in which carbon dioxide is sequestered from the atmosphere to mitigate climate change.

CliRAIM, and Hatch Blue welcomed ocean stewards, technology trailblazers, entrepreneurs, engineers, innovators and scientists who seek to create positive social, environmental and economic change in Hawaiʻi.

“We are particularly focused on advancing innovations for the blue economy in ways that are sustainable and culturally informed—a major goal is to identify strategies to generate more food locally and create livelihoods that improve our societal resilience,” said Erik Franklin, CliRAIM director and associate research professor at the Hawaiʻi Institute of Marine Biology (HIMB) in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). “For the AquaHack event, the participants generated exciting potential solutions to current challenges in aquaculture for both traditional Native Hawaiian fishponds as well as modern aquaculture approaches.”

See the full story on SOEST News!