Seafood And Fisheries Emerging Technologies Conference
Bangkok 13–16 February
In February, Fishcoin was honoured to present at the the SAFET Conference (formerly the Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance [MCS] Emerging Technologies Workshop). It is the only global conference where MCS, and now seafood supply chain practitioners from around the world can explore and learn about the very latest technologies available for application in fisheries MCS and supply chain traceability.
The overarching goal of the conference series is to explore and discover the potential of emerging technologies to address some of the most difficult fisheries MCS and seafood supply chain traceability challenges in an effort to prevent, deter, or eliminate Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated fishing.
Specifically, the objectives of the conference were to:
- Improve and clarify the understanding of the existing MCS and supply chain traceability environment.
- Objectively review emerging and advancing technologies that might contribute to less expensive and more efficient MCS and supply chain traceability.
- Advance the future implementation of innovative emerging technologies in MCS and supply chain traceability applications where appropriate.
On show were technologies as diverse as satellite remote sensing, unmanned surveillance vehicles, and companies such as Integrated Monitoring able to show real time footage of fishing activity in South America. Running alongside the conference was a Seafood Traceability Hackathon whereby great solutions were built in just a few days.
Fishcoin were also invited to present and we highlighted that much of the technology on display was inaccessible to the majority of fishers as they are small scale fishers in developing nations. This was not only an economic inaccessibility challenge but also a capacity challenge, and therefore we need to look to solutions that are not only affordable but that can operate in 2G environments and that are made with the fishers in mind as many have low digital literacies. Furthermore, on top of capture fishers there a millions of people working in aquaculture — a sector that is still heavily reliant on wild stocks for seed and feed.
To be inclusive and reach the vast majority of these fishers, technologies need to be built around the technology that they have in their hands — mobile phones. Increasingly that is becoming smartphone technology as entry models continue to become cheaper. Indeed, the Global System for Mobile Association (GSMA) predicts that smartphone connections will rise from 57% to 77% by 2025, and that in those six years 2G connections will decline from 41% to 5%. Most of this growth will occur in the Asia Pacific region where most of the worlds seafood is caught or grown.
The Fishcoin decentralised application, mFish has already been shown to function on the most basic of smartphones such as a $45 Advan phone purchased in Indonesia. This phone receives and sends records, and records the data on the Rinkeby Ethereum test net blockchain. Indeed with such low costs, thus lower risk, phone sellers may be more likely offer finance lease arrangements for the phones, and one day even accept payments in Fishcoin tokens from fishers and fish farmers.
The SAFET conference created and strengthened new connections among technology, industry, and government specialists, and identified current and future opportunities for the application of innovative technologies in fisheries MCS and supply chain traceability. We look forward to playing a leading role in this endeavour. In closing, the Fishcoin team would like to thank WWF’s Bubba Cook for inviting us to present and we appreciated all the hard work he and his colleagues put in to making the conference a great success.
Interested in becoming a Fishcoin or Seafood Innovation Project Community partner?
Companies and organisations in the seafood industry interested in becoming rollout partners in the Fishcoin ecosystem or who just want to know more about joining the Fishcoin community of partners please contact our team.
