Woods Hole launched the Ocean and Climate Innovation Accelerator (OCIA) consortium. ADI has committed $3 million over three years towards the consortium which will focus on advancing knowledge of the ocean’s critical role in combatting climate change as well as developing new solutions at the intersection of oceans and climate.
“Carbon emissions feature as a centerpiece in global efforts to mitigate climate change. Oceans are among our most important defense mechanisms against a warming planet – yet their ability to continue to play this critically important role is being threatened by the effects of climate change,” said Vincent Roche, CEO of Analog Devices. “Through the Ocean and Climate Innovation Accelerator, we are committed to engaging ADI’s engineers and technologies to advance knowledge of the oceans, in order to gain a better understanding of how oceans are impacted by climate change and to develop solutions to restore ocean health. By doing so, we hope to drive meaningful impact on the global fight against climate change.”
The OCIA consortium is designed to be a highly scalable collaboration leveraging the unique resources and capabilities of its partner organizations. Among its goals, the consortium will focus on the development of the “networked ocean” – placing sensors across oceanographic environments that will continuously monitor critical metrics related to ocean conditions with the aim of informing business and policy decision makers, enabling evidence-based stewardship of ocean health and driving more accurate climate and weather predictions with real-time data.
“On behalf of WHOI’s entire community of ocean scientists and engineers, we are incredibly excited about this collaboration,” said Dr. Peter de Menocal, president, and director of WHOI. “The formation of the OCIA consortium comes at a time when support for science and ocean research is at a critical juncture. We are building a research innovation ecosystem that will drive new understanding to tackle global challenges facing society. It provides a new, scalable model showing how corporations can engage deeply on the climate crisis.”
