Hack4Oceans in Brussels

The Вachelor students from the Sustainable Coastal Management at Novia UAS, participated in Hack4Oceans in Brussels. The hackathon was organized by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (EC DG MARE).

The idea of Hack4Oceans was to combine the youth minds in a two-day intensive workshop to solve the problem of how to conserve and sustain the use of marine resources and oceans. Hackaton united students, experts, academics and officials from across EU countries.

The hackathon was divided into 4 sections important for the conservation of the oceans:

• Marine Litter
• Alternative food from the ocean
• Ocean and Climate Change
• Protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems

Dmitrii Plekhanov and Vivi Wendelin participated in the “Protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems” section with the idea of the project called “Erasmus for the Sea”. The main idea of the project was to create and develop a system that will help managers of the marine protected areas to find volunteers from the students to solve a wide range of environmental problems and help conserve the nature of the marine protected areas.

Hanna Tsyvinskaya was the member of the team that developed the idea of how to reduce marine litter especially plastic by making changes in behaviour of individuals.

Other ideas and projects that were developed during the hackathon were also interesting and useful for protecting marine ecosystems. The grand jury had a difficult job to choose the best projects in each section. The result of their choice was that both projects with Novia students won their respective sections.

EC DG MARE intends to study all the proposed ideas and projects and use the best projects for further development.