This is a comment from Fride Iversen, Senior Project Manager for Competence and Talent Attraction .
Solving our challenges
When meeting with young people, we find that many have a narrow view of the seafood industry. Most people tend to think of someone who works directly with the salmon on the edge of the cage, which is quite far from the truth.
The industry is so much more; it is the opportunities that lie in new species, in seaweed and kelp, new forms of operation and products that can be developed from the sea. And much, much more.
At the same time, the industry has several challenges that need to be solved. Technological development, digitalization and innovation, combined with smart minds can help solve the problems that stand in the way of growth. Sustainable growth is impossible without a supply of new graduates with fresh knowledge in important fields.
Collaboration and visibility are the solution
That's why we're organizing a major project this fall to make the seafood industry better known to tomorrow's workforce. This way, they can gain insight into all the opportunities in the industry and the broad expertise our industry needs to achieve sustainable development.
Together with Ungt Entreprenørskap, 8 seafood companies and other partners such as NHH, Handelens Miljøfond and the Norwegian Seafood Council, we are touring the coast for several months and organizing 13 innovation camps. It is a two-day workshop where high school students get to test themselves on real industry challenges from the industry and propose solutions to them.
We believe this creates a win-win situation for students and the business community. Students build knowledge about the industry, about innovation and entrepreneurship, while the industry brings solutions to problems that are challenging to solve and gets the opportunity to build a reputation with an important target group.
Stimulate entrepreneurship and creativity
A couple of weeks ago we organized an innovation camp in Kirkenes and gathered 80 students from vocational subjects. At each camp, a winner is chosen from among the students' ideas, and here the group with the product "Scarfish" was the winner. Their idea was to make a plaster from fish skin for use on burns. Both sustainable, innovative and not entirely unrealistic to achieve. Now the winning group is in full swing with their own student company to develop the idea further, and maybe this is the start of an exciting innovation project?
Given that fewer entrepreneurs in Norway dare to take the plunge, these innovation camps can also have a double positive effect. Not only do they stimulate creativity and inventiveness, they can actually result in good ideas that create new businesses and jobs. Or solutions that can contribute to a more sustainable seafood industry.
Shows the industry's opportunities
The example from Kirkenes also shows the breadth of the seafood industry. For example, it is not just about fish and salmon farming. By meeting the students and challenging them to think new things, they also get a picture of a diverse industry with many opportunities.
This fall, we are challenging 1,500 students from Rogaland to Troms and Finnmark to find solutions to one of three following issues: reduction of plastic, increased seafood consumption and increased value creation. Can seaweed and kelp be used as a substitute for plastic? Or can new products get young people to eat more seafood?
The students will find out, and it also shows them how many different job opportunities there are. That is precisely why it is so important that the industry meets with young people before they make important choices for their future. Maybe it will lead to them choosing education based on this meeting? The feedback from the students along the way is positive, and it is clear that they are engaged in solving the challenges in the industry.
Attracting expertise to the districts
By meeting the students at the schools, we also have the opportunity to show them the local workplaces. The students gain insight into the different career paths in the industry and they see that there are exciting workplaces where they grow up.
The fact that it is difficult to get workers to the districts is nothing new. Many of the seafood companies that participate in innovation camps have offices along the coast and in the districts. Among others, Nutrimar, which has a factory on Frøya, is involved, and they show the students the opportunities of working in the district. This can help attract expertise to local areas.
Important work for the future
As the Møre research report on future competence and recruitment needs in the Norwegian seafood industry showed, we have both recruitment problems and a great need for competence in the future. If young people don't know about us, we have a problem.
At innovation camps, we let students work on issues in the seafood industry, and through the work they get to experience how exciting it can be and what challenges the industry has to offer. We believe this is important for them to choose us.
Because without new expertise and young talent for the industry, we will enter the future at a disadvantage. That is why it is important that young people get to know us and know about the exciting opportunities that lie ahead of them.
Lerøy, Grieg Seafood, Biomar, Ragn-Sells, Nutrimar, Patogen, Cargill, Tekslo Seafood, NHH, Handelens Miljøfond and the Seafood Council are already involved in this important project and we encourage more to do the same. Meeting young people before they make important choices for the future is something all of us who work in the industry should prioritize.
Working together on this benefits us all.
