Visitas: 261
Aquaculture Magazine reports:
450 participants from more than 50 countries assisted to the new edition of AquaVision, the event of the global company Skretting. At the end of the conference, Skretting’s CEO Bastiaan van Tilburg took the opportunity to call to the industry to work together: “But let’s not work together in isolation. We need to tell our wonderful stories wider, and bring them outside this room,” he said.
Having assumed the role just ten days before, at the start, the new Nutreco CEO, David Blakemore, introduced himself to the room, and talked about Nutreco‘s role in feeding the world’s rapidly growing population. “In Nutreco we have over a century of experience providing high-quality nutrition to the animal and aquaculture industry. Feeding the Future is not just our purpose, it’s also our passion and responsibility,” he said.
The next speakers after Blakemore dived into the topic of sustainability. Gonzalo Muñoz, UN Climate Change High-Level Champion for COP28, IUCN President, concisely summarized the severity of this challenge when he said early on in his presentation: “Getting to net zero by 2050 is massive. We’ve been really slow and things need to change exponentially.”
Presentation on innovation by Claudia Salem, from the Ecuadorian Santa Priscila
The stage for the second session on market disruptions was set by none other than the world-renowned economist Professor Paul Krugman. He gave a very interesting overview of the state of the world economy today, talking about the economic impacts of Covid-19 (“we’ve bounced back very quickly”), inflation, the influence of technology and artificial intelligence, climate change, globalisation, and of course, politics.
Claudia Salem, from the Ecuadorian Santa Priscila, gave an excellent presentation on innovation, and so did Dag Sletmo from DNB Seafood, and Mark Gallagher from F1. There were also useful insights from Santhana Krishnan, CEO of Marine Technologies, and Jason Yang, General Manager of Nutreco China. Both of them talked about India and China respectively, and it was interesting to hear their perspectives on the growth opportunities that lie in these markets.
Artificial intelligence
For her part, Anita Schjøll Abildgaard, CEO of Iris.ai, had people sitting up on the morning of day two, as she talked about artificial intelligence. She painted a vivid picture about how the conversation around AI has evolved throughout her career, as it has gained greater visibility and acceptance among the general public.
“This is the slowest the technology is ever going to develop, and this is the worst it’s ever going to be. We’re in for a ride,” she promised. She also talked about the issues and ethics around AI that the world is only starting to scratch the surface of. Lastly, she talked about what the executives in the aquaculture industry need to be looking out for, such as real-time video processing and fully autonomous devices.
“You don’t need a PhD in machine learning to be a driver of innovation,” she said. “But it’s important for you to embrace it, and see how you can potentially integrate AI to make your lives more streamlined.”
The most revolutionary innovations
The session was also chock-full of presentations where the audience got sneak peeks at some of today’s most revolutionary innovations, from Nutreco‘s Garden of the Future, to Aker BioMarine‘s fully autonomous drone that can catch krill in the Antarctica. Knut Nesse from AKVA Group talked about the importance of new technology to drive the industry forward, and the assistants saw an example of their technology in use in Nordic Aqua Partner‘s brand-new facility in China.
To end off the conference, Skretting‘s CEO van Tilburg played a little tune on the piano He also took the opportunity to echo his predecessor Therese Log Bergjord’s call to the industry to work together. “But let’s not work together in isolation. We need to tell our wonderful stories wider, and bring them outside this room,” he said.
