SFI Smart Ocean Spring Workshop

SFI Smart Ocean was gathered at Austevoll May 30th -31st. Bekkjarvik Gjestgiveri was the venue for 41 participants from the Centre in a lunch-to-lunch workshop, to discuss use-cases and the pilot-demonstrators. On our way to Bekkjarvik we also stopped at IMR’s Research station at Austevoll to get an overview of the station.


Our main pilot-demonstrator will be located close to the research station. The visit was arranged to give everyone firsthand knowledge of the facility, and to get ideas and inspiration for how to utilize the station when designing our main pilot-demonstrator. Flexible and optimized test facilities are needed to support the development of the SFI Smart Ocean technology in the best possible way. Station Manager Kjetil Stensland had arranged a guided tour for us, and he also joined the workshop later.

The workshop opened with the incoming center manager Marie Bueie Holstad thanking the outgoing center manager Geir Anton Johansen for his important efforts in the start-up phase of the center.

The first day of the workshop was focused on use-cases. The purpose was to provide input to the different work-packages from end-users of the innovations from the Centre. This will greatly help us focusing the future work and ensure value for the ocean industries. Bjarte Fagerås (GCE Ocean Technology), Christian von der Ohe (GCE Node), Kristian Blom (NCE Seafood Innovation/Aquacloud) and Jon Hellevang (GCE Ocean Technology) provided us with opening speeches on Oil and gas, Offshore wind, Aquaculture and Marine minerals. They also facilitated the following group discussions, where all participants shared their views and experiences.

The second day of the workshop was focused on how to best develop the pilot-demonstrators at SFI Smart Ocean. The work-packages-leaders started the day with presenting their needs from the demonstrators, and then Øyvind Bergh (IMR – deputizing for Jan Erik Stiansen) gave a broad overview of the demonstrators. The leaders of 4 of the demonstrators (Øyvind Bergh – again deputizing for Jan Erik Stiansen, Hanne Sagen (NERSC), Renate Grindheim (TSC Subsea) and Bård Henriksen (NORCE) then led the following group-discussions. This gave us the chance to discuss in more detail the needs, requirements, possibilities and limitations related to all our four main pilot demonstrators.

It’s been two great days leaving us with very valuable input for our further focus in SFI Smart Ocean! We are already looking forward to the autumn workshop in October!