For more than a decade The Iceland Ocean Cluster has been the center of maritime innovation in Iceland. Their mission is to create value by connecting together entrepreneurs, businesses and knowledge in the marine industries. To serve this mission the IOC provides a range of services and invest resources in new marine spin-offs and projects.
The flagship project of the IOC is an idea called 100% Fish. The Mission this project is to inspire the seafood industry and seafood communities to utilize more of each fish, increase the value of each fish landed, support new business opportunities, increase employment and most importantly decrease waste. Since the 1990’s, the utilization of fishery by-products has increased 30-fold, the export value per cod kilogram has risen by a factor of 4 and the array of different marine products has multiplied. Today, Icelandic cod producers typically make use of up to 80% of their raw material, however its clear that there still lies much work ahead to get to 100% utilization.
One of the main people at the Iceland Ocean Cluster that’s working on this goal is Dr. Alexandra Leeper. She has recently migrated from applied research and into the Icelandic innovation and start-up landscape, bringing with her a passion for sustainable use of our ocean resources. Her role is that of a scientist entrepreneur in the blue bio economy, from which she draws on diverse experiences from working all over the world in universities, consultancies, offshore oil and gas and scuba instruction.
Alexandra is originally from the UK and moved to Iceland to complete her master´s research in sustainable aquaculture in 2016 and then never left. She has since completed an industrial doctorate in aquaculture feeds and circular bioeconomy in collaboration with Matís ohf food and biotechnology, Iceland and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Norway. She is now with the Iceland Ocean Cluster as head of research and innovation and the Iceland College of Fisheries as an educator focusing on the mission of 100% fish as well as a wide range of other projects. Alexandra will be speaking about the 100% fish project and maritime innovation in Iceland at Startup Iceland 2022 at Harpa Conference hall on June 3rd.
