Fishing for Data: A Better Way to Collect Ocean Information

Left: A temperature and depth sensor on a scallop dredge in the Gulf of Maine. Image: Cooper Van Vranken. Right: A sensor on a trawl net headrope, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Image: Lynn Selboe. Sensors: NKE Instrumentation.

Cooper Van Vranken grew up on a little island in Maine where he was immersed in the fishing industry from a young age. As an adult, Van Vranken commercially fished lobster in Maine and salmon in Alaska, learning of the daunting challenges fishers face due to overfishing.

He wanted to dive deeper into the problem, but quickly realized that the satellites were only collecting surface-level data that couldn’t provide any insight into what was happening with the cod swimming 300 feet beneath the surface.

That’s when Van Vranken did something he thought was common sense for a fisher, but found it had never been attempted before. Cooper began sticking sensors on the nets and gear he used to collect the fish. The sensors were co-located with the fish, returning to the surface after the catch with detailed information about what was happening in the ocean environment.

And so, Ocean Data Network was born.

Ocean Data Network’s mission is to enable a thriving future for the blue planet by democratizing ocean data. The company facilitates collaborations with fishers to collect high impact data where it matters most for science and the blue economy.

Ocean Data Network joined SeaAhead’s third cohort for the BlueSwell Incubator last year. We caught up with Cooper Van Vranken, founder of Ocean Data Network, to learn more about how things have been since graduating from BlueSwell:

SeaAhead: Thanks for sitting down with us. We would love to hear more about your customers and business model. Can you share more about that?

Van Vranken: One example, the US Navy pays us for a data collection subscription service for a specific region for a year. We provide that and we instrument whatever boats are necessary, which often includes a stipend back to those boats. Fishermen get the equipment for free, and they get paid a small amount, symbolic of their help with the project. They're catching the data so they should be rewarded for it. Our fastest growing revenue and data segments are direct funding from the fishing industry. A good example is in British Columbia. Really smart crab fishermen that we're working with are saying that their Department of Fisheries and Oceans just isn't moving fast enough, and they need to be monitoring what's happening with open ocean temperatures. They’re willing to move faster and then fund the science themselves since it’s a tool that they can use to fish smarter, more efficiently and more sustainably.

SeaAhead: Do you find that people are willing to collaborate and help with your effort to make a data network or is there an argument you must make to them?

Van Vranken: That’s the most common question we get. It's been easier than I thought it would be.  I think a big part of that is knowing what both sides want. Another piece is we're dealing with ocean temperature data. There are no secrecy problems for the fishing industry with that. If we were dealing with catch data, that would be a very different conversation. But this is something that fishers are happy to contribute to and they benefit directly from. So, it really has not been an issue at all.

SeaAhead: Awesome. Can you explain what “the blue data revolution” is for someone unfamiliar with that term?

Van Vranken: The fundamental thesis there is that ocean data is decades behind where we are on land data. A perfect example is precision agriculture. We can see the surface of the Earth very well with a variety of satellite observations. So land data is relatively cheap and accessible. You can use it to inform businesses such as farming. The same satellite technology cannot be used for oceans-especially since its constantly moving. It is far more challenging to collect data beneath the surface of the ocean. But we think the benefits of doing so will be substantially greater and remove a lot of uncertainty, risk, and loss of life.

SeaAhead: What are some of the biggest challenges ODN has faced so far?

Van Vranken: One of the biggest challenges that we faced was the maturity of the ocean data space and interest from big government customers. If you were to just start a start-up and say your first customers are going to be government entities, I would say that's a really bad idea. The budget cycles and the timelines for projects are so long, going through that bureaucracy can kill a small company. Fortunately, we've made it through the other side on that, but I think that early business [with government contracts] can stifle a lot of important innovation.

SeaAhead: What made ODN choose to apply to the BlueSwell Incubator Program?

Van Vranken: Specifically, the depth of knowledge on complex ocean issues exhibited by a few SeaAhead folks that I was in contact with. It was really impressive and the willingness to go, pun intended, beneath the surface on some of these things. I think SeaAhead does a great job on confronting the challenges and opportunities of the ocean space and innovation.

SeaAhead: Where do you see ODN heading in the near future, maybe the next five years?

Van Vranken: Soon, we're planning to double our team size. That's shaping up pretty well right now. We’re also giving ourselves a better foundation for growth and starting to really dig into bigger business strategies. All of which is moving pretty quickly in terms of the market uptake, the science, and the demand for this type of data. We are already an emerging network, and, unabashedly, are changing the game in a way that coastal ocean observing works which is pretty feasible within a 5 to 10-year timeframe.

SeaAhead: Exciting stuff! Is there anything else you would like people to know about Ocean Data Network?

Van Vranken: I think a lot of people think, “oh, fishing for data, that's cute.“ But it is a better mechanism for collecting data. Everybody likes these autonomous systems, but in order to change the paradigm and unlock data on the scales that are necessary to feed the data driven blue revolution, this is the only approach that is viable.

Want to learn more about Ocean Data Network? Visit their website here