THE III UNIVERSITY-COMPANY MEETING OF SHERPA DO MAR ADDRESSED THE DEVELOPMENT OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES OF HIGH ADDED VALUE IN THE MARINE-MARITIME FIELD

Focused on innovation and entrepreneurship, Sherpa do Mar held last Tuesday the 14th the central day of the III Online University-Industry Meeting, which brought together the main experts in the field from Galicia and northern Portugal with the aim of enhancing cooperation between the community science and companies in the sector to generate new growth opportunities in both regions.

The event, of an informative nature and with a complete program of interventions, also hosted bilateral virtual networking meetings, in which more than fifty people participated, and in which companies and individuals had the opportunity, in addition, to connect with the transfer offices of the Galician and Portuguese universities (UVigo, USC, UDC and UPorto) and the Interdisciplinary Center for Research Marinha e Ambiental -CIIMAR-.

Projects and success stories

The director of the services area of ​​the Galician Innovation Agency of the Xunta de Galicia, Patricia Fernández Liz, was in charge of opening the event and presenting the Galician network of entrepreneurship accelerators and the Consolidation Strategy of the Biotechnology sector of Galicia 2021 -2025. During her speech, she stressed the importance of cooperation and that the knowledge available to companies and the university flows between the different agents to achieve innovation, as well as that it is transferred to the market and is translated into the creation of new companies or in its growth. "We have to promote innovation in SMEs, which make up 99% of our ecosystem, and the creation of new innovative companies because they are the agents that have a great capacity for change and economic and social transformation."

Next, Tania Tato, belonging to the Campus do Mar of the University of Vigo, focused her presentation on the BLUEBIOLAB project, of the Cross-Border Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology. For his part, Jorge Sineiro, partner and technical manager of Celtalga Extract, delved into the developments that are being carried out in the field of cosmetics from microalgae. Elisabete Matos, technical-scientific coordinator of the Blue Bioeconomy CoLAB of Portugal, addressed, for her part, the main challenges of the blue bioeconomy, and Lucía Castro, manager of the Galician Digital Innovation Hub DIH DATAlife, in services for the digitization of the sector sea-industry. Carla Domingues, Project officer of Fórum Oceano, was in charge of presenting the Portugal Blue Digital Hub (Pole of Digital Innovation of the Blue Economy) and Diego Méndez, research staff of the Sustainability and Circular Economy Division of Anfaco-Cecopesca, participated with his presentation on the valorization of burnt algae in the framework of the ALEHOOP project.

The program was completed with the interventions of Joana Laranjeira, director of R&D and plant of Allmicroalgae - Natural Products, who explained the industrial-scale cultivation of microalgae for food applications carried out in the Algavalor project, and Carlos Esteban, partner of the Faber Blue Pioneers venture capital fund, which highlighted the financing opportunities available to blue economy companies.

The day ended with the pitch of four of the twelve projects that are currently being accelerated in the first program of accompaniment to the Sherpa Journeys venture, from Sherpa do Mar: SUBGO, Valbiosea, North Wind Sailing for Science and ActivaeAlgae (Fykia Biotech) .

You can view the full event by clicking here.