OceanHub Africa accelerator program call for applications

OceanHub Africa is launching its second call for applications to join this year’s cohort of startups to be selected for its six-month online acceleration programme.

Beginning in April 2021, the programme will select and support Africa’s most promising and impact-driven startups seeking to develop an environmentally conscious and profitable ocean economy, shaping better interactions between people and oceans in support of the Sustainable Development Goal 14 – Life Below Water. Selected applicants will be given access to OHA’s partners’ service packages and its highly qualified network of stakeholders and facilitators, who will help startups devise sustainable pathways yielding stable profits and avenues for scalable growth throughout Africa.
Ocean-minded startups looking to join the OHA accelerator can apply from 25 January 2021 and until 5 March 2021 at https://www.oceanhub.africa/application

Unleashing the Power of African Ocean Innovators
Oceans are the life support of our planet. They drive our climate, provide food and water to all living things, and connect our continents. The annual value of the global Ocean’s Economy (formal and informal) is estimated at $2.5 trillion and is expected to grow substantially, doubling by 2030. However, our societies are already generating tremendous stress onto these ecosystems and this vast untapped economic potential needs to be addressed in a radically more sustainable manner. “We believe it is down to businesses to implement the necessary changes and up to us to promote more Oceans-conscious innovative businesses: innovations led by science, technology and entrepreneurship will provide the necessary leverage points to meet SDGs’ objectives [Sustainable Development Goals], with the right pace and scale” say co-founders of OceanHub Africa Alexis and Stéphanie.

Africa offers a particularly high potential in terms of Blue Economy developments, offering an ideal ground to test and scale impact innovation. The continent’s ocean economy is on top of the continent’s political agenda (African Union Agenda 2063) and seen to be a major contributor to continental transformation and growth of industries such as fisheries and aquaculture, marine renewables and biotechnologies, boat building and shipping, coastal tourism and ocean-sports, ocean data, AI and robotics… and the list goes on.

The development of the Blue Economy is an immensely important first step towards creating Sustainable Development pathways and this is what OceanHub Africa does by providing product and business development services to accelerate the adoption of new sustainable ocean solutions. Last year, the first acceleration programme was successfully completed and saw 6 startups of different stages (prototyping to growth stage), technologies (digital to hardware) and industries (aquaculture/ fisheries, shipping/ ship-building, marine renewables/ biotechnologies, coastal tourism/ ocean-sports, & awareness/education) graduating during the Ocean Innovation Africa Summit in November 2020 (see feedback here). This new call for applications targeting entrepreneurs starting-up a business operating in Africa with high market potential whilst participating in shaping better interactions between people and oceans will thus follow the tracks of the program’s alumni and join the swell of people rising up for our Blue Planet!