Page 18: of Marine Technology Magazine (January 2020)

Funding Emerging Technology

Dan of SafetyNet “We know the good ideas are out

Technologies dis- there, the resources to develop them cusses his plans while have just been too limited,” says the getting input from the program’s director, Mark Schrope. local ? shing commu- “We created this “venture philanthro- nity in Indonesia. py” model to ? ll an often-fatal gap in support available for the development of ocean technologies, which typically require something beyond traditional grants in order to achieve full potential and availability.”

The organization focuses on technol- ogies working toward sustaining ? sh- eries, enabling ocean research, pro- moting habitat health, and preventing marine plastic pollution, supporting more than 40 groups in accomplishing the development, dissemination, and possible commercialization of ocean technologies. The work of the SMTP group is allowing for new companies to expand ocean observing capabili-

Ethan Edson of ties at an accelerating pace.

Ocean Diag- nostics demon-

From Lab to Ocean strates some of

One success story begins with Ethan his microplastic

Edson, an undergraduate engineering sensors. student at Northeastern University, who saw how scientists collected mi- croplastics—essentially using tech- niques from a century ago involving net tows and physical counting. Edson thought there had to be a better way, so with funding from SMTP, Ocean

Diagnostics began doing just that.

The company is building a suite of products that range from portable tools that can be lowered over the side of a kayak, or deployed while SCUBA diving, to completely autonomous sensors that hook into a ship to pas- sively collect data. “Sampling micro- plastics is really tricky because the ocean has so many other things in it,” says Edson. “If you are in Massachu- setts, Bermuda, the Mediterranean, or

Southeast Asia, it all looks different.

Designing one sensor that can go into any water body and detect microplas- tics has been a great challenge. But re- ally fun to work on.”

The SMTP program is doing exactly what it set out to do, helping Ocean

Diagnostics to get products from a

Credit: Ocean Diagnostics Credit: Mark Schrope.

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