Last week, 161 students from Bjørnafjorden County accepted a case challenge provided by Bolaks, during the SMARTere Teknologi competition arranged by Ungt Entreprenørskap.
NCE Seafood Innovation’s goal is to increase knowledge about the seafood industry and inspire the youth to choose a career path within the ocean. SMARTere Teknologi is an innovation camp mainly focused on creativity, creation and innovation, that works closely with local businesses, to showcase the industry. This time around, Bolaks was invited to present a case, giving 6th graders an opportunity to solve a potential real life industry problem.
SMARTere Teknologi is a program designed for 6th graders, which is mainly focused on technology. The students are provided with a case or a problem from a local business and will have to use their creativity and knowledge to design a solution for the future. They should solve the problem using technology, and the goal is to find a sustainable solution for the community.
The program is structured as an innovation camp, stretched over two full school days. The students are teamed up in groups, where they come together and build a model that will solve the problem provided by the local businesses. With the two days coming to an end, they will present their solution together as a group, and a school jury will select the best contestant to move on to the next step of the competition. In the next part, the best contribution from each school will be competing against each other, to find the number one best case solution in the county.
Bolaks is greatly focused on sustainable breeding, and provided the students with the following case to solve:
“What should a breeding fascility look like in 10 – 15 years, to create the best possible environment for the fish, in a way that impacts the environment of the fjords as little as possible”.
In total, 161 6th graders from Bjørnafjorden county participated, and spent two full days creating the best possible solution to the case provided by Bolaks.
“I am impressed by the student’s ability to think outside the box, and by their engagement to find solutions that will contribute to sustainable growth within the industy. They have without a doubt learned a lot about the industry. Some of the proposals are actually similar to solutions that the industry is actually working on to hopefully solve the issues”., says Karina Antonsen Hjelle, VP at Bolaks.
The winner case was a mini-breeding facility that run on solar cells, a solar antenna, and wave power. In their solution, they have created a facility that take into account challenges such as sea lice, fish stool, excess fish feed and pollution from boats. They presented a thorough idea, with sustainable solutions for feeding and vaccinating the fish, tackling sea lice challenges with fresh water, and creating fertilization for soil from fish stool.
We want to congratulate the winners, who impressed us with how much they can learn and create within the limit of 48 hours. It is exciting to see so many talented kids come together and tackle real life challenges in such an inventive and creative way. We hope to see many of them working in the seafood industry in the future!