From Iceland with Kelp: ISLANDS students win the 2025 Copernicus Hackathon
In the ISLANDs Masters’ first weekend of their mobility at the University of Iceland, Aya, Aisling, Jacqueline and associate islander Christian were awarded first place for the Copernicus Ocean Hackathon 2025. The top prize was awarded to our team of islands students for their project, called Kelpture, specializing in the emerging industry of kelp farming site optimization. The Hackathon took place over two and a half days during the weekend (Feb 07 – 09), in which our team of island students competed with seven other teams of students and industry experts to brainstorm, develop and pitch sustainable solutions and help Icelandic companies and authorities monitor the ocean and coastal habitats. The event was hosted by Reykjavik University and was run in collaboration with Startup Iceland and Náttúrufræðistofnun (Natural Science Institute of Iceland) with the goal of transforming satellite data into value for the blue economy.Day one of the Hackathon included a talk from Bala Kamallakharan, the founder of Startup Iceland and Iceland Venture Studio, to get the teams thinking about an initial idea to tackle one of four potential ocean related themes, along with (free!) pizza. During the event, presentations were also given by multiple experts in the Blue Economy, notably Angel Luiz a professor from the University of Iceland on the Power of the Ocean and Sveinn Sigurður Jóhannesson, the CEO of GreenFish – a company specializing in efficiency within the fishing industry.
On day two of the event, the team began brainstorming ideas. The Kelpture team chose Climate Change & Rising Sea Levels as their selected theme, to address ecosystem disruption, oceanic heat absorption and ocean acidification caused by Climate Change. The team were also given the opportunity to be mentored by Natural Science specialist Marco Pizzolato who provided advice for the upcoming project pitch the following day.
On the final day all eight teams finalised the project and prepared their pitches which were to be presented to a panel of ocean economy experts. The islands students’ project, Kelpture, explored an AI-powered Kelp farming site selection tool that assists farmers with finding optimal locations for kelp harvesting around Iceland. Kelp farming in particular was specifically chosen as studies have shown that this type of macroalgae, is considered a high-impact carbon capturer, and thus a viable solution which tackles ocean-related climate issues and contributes to multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals. This innovative tool was created using various publicly available data sources including Copernicus Marine Data and Coastal Hub. This data was used for multiple analyses to determine ocean locations which are optimal for kelp growth (as shown in the map below).
The Kelpture team, along with all the other teams, then presented their pitches to the panel of judges, consisting of Alexandra Leeper, the CEO of Icelandic Ocean Cluster, Marco Pizzolato, Specialist at the Natural Science Institute of Iceland and CTO at Fléttan, and Sveinn Sigurður Jóhannesson, Co-Founder and CEO of GreenFish. The teams were then judged by strict criteria, including the quality of the presentation, effective use of satellite data, solution alignment with the hackathon’s goals, innovation, feasibility, and the range of skill sets offered by the members of each team.
For the team’s research output and the pitch, presented by Aya Youssef, the Kelpture team – out of the top three prizes – was awarded the top prize of 100.000 ISK cash prize. Additionally for their work and the opportunity for the team to develop this project further, access was also awarded to the team to the Iceland Ocean Cluster (IOC) innovation space valued at 49.000 ISK.
Additional details about the hackathon, as well as recordings of the presentations which took place at the Hackathon, and the prize ceremony can be found in the following links:
- Copernicus Ocean Hackathon 2025: https://sjavarklasinn.is/en/copernicus-hackathon-2/
- Final Project Presentations: https://www.youtube.com/live/2uqrgRsBxxQ?si=ja8X155UmRVJfCmn&t=529
- Prize Ceremony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3grvKVmnCfQ
A contribution sent in by Aya, Aisling, Jaqueline, and ISLANDS-associate Chris of the 2023 and 2024 intake from the ISLANDS programme.