Category: Grantmaking

The Great Bubble Barrier, based out of the Netherlands, develops bubble curtains that intercept plastic and other pollution in waterways before it can reach oceans. Here, the team explains how the novel technique works: 

Each year 1.8 million metric tons of plastic enters the ocean via rivers. Once lost at sea, plastic is almost impossible to retrieve and degrades into smaller particles. The Great Bubble Barrier’s mission is to stop plastic closer to the source without interfering with marine life or boat traffic. Schmidt Marine, became a proud partner and supporter of this work after an initial collaboration with The Great Bubble Barrier and Stop! Microwaste in 2019. 

The Great Bubble Barrier successfully implemented the first ever long-term Bubble Barrier to catch plastic pollution in Amsterdam in 2019. It has been continuously operating ever since, and removes about 85 kg (8,000 pieces) of inorganic debris each month! In 2022, the team deployed the first Bubble Barrier in a river mouth in Katwijk, the Netherlands. The Bubble Barrier system has been extensively tested and proven to catch plastic particles as small as 1 mm and intercept 86% of floating test material in inland water.

Their inventive and ingenious solution to ocean pollution earned the team international attention as a 2022 Earthshot Prize finalist. The Earthshot Prize is awarded to breakthrough solutions that can solve the biggest environmental challenges across 5 themed areas, including “Revive Our Oceans.” 

“We are so humbled to have been named finalists for this award, and see this as the next step to growing The Great Bubble Barrier internationally. We hope to see more cities in the Netherlands and over the world reaching out to implement this solution in their rivers. Thank you to our fellow SMTP grantees and 2021 Earthshot Prize winner, Takachar, for nominating us! We are eager to use SMTP’s continued support to help develop and accelerate our work, in addition to Earthshot’s global platform to share our story,” said Francis Zoet, co-founder and COO of The Great Bubble Barrier.

 

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners (SMTP), a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation, has awarded $3 million in grants to help launch new ocean technology initiatives and support existing partners. The funds support innovative projects that enable ocean research, promote habitat health, and maintain sustainable fisheries.

SMTP’s “venture philanthropy” model was developed to fill a gap in support available for the early development of ocean technologies, which typically require something beyond traditional grants in order to achieve full potential and availability. Since its founding in 2015, SMTP has contributed funding to the development of more than 60 promising technologies that solve complex ocean health issues and, in most cases, have strong commercialization potential. 

This grant cycle’s recipients and projects include the following:

• Virgil Group LLC for the development of SeafoodCheck, an automated software solution to assessing seafood legality
• Subsea Data Systems is working with the University of Hawaii and the ITU/WMO/UNESCO-IOC Joint Task Force for SMART Subsea Cable to support development of SMART Cables, a global climate ocean monitoring system   
• Santa Monica Bay Foundation and Marauder Robotics for continued support of automatic urchin removal and restoring balance to kelp forests
• Induced Polarization Associates (of parent company Williamson and Associates) to support the development of a towable contaminate sensing system
• Anna Michel’s lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution for further development of a portable ocean gas sensor
• Ocean Research and Conservation Association for multiple efforts aimed at tracking and addressing estuary pollution issues
• Ocean Visions to support the exploration of ocean based carbon dioxide removal 
• Plant a Million Corals Foundation to train groups internationally in coral reef restoration methods, and to provide toolkits for such work
• Bishop Museum and Stone Aerospace for continued support of Sunfish, a “self-driving” real-time mapping automatic underwater vehicle (AUV)

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Network that includesThe Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, 11th Hour Project,  Schmidt Ocean Institute , 11th Hour Racing and Remain Nantucket.

SMTP is excited to announce the latest round of grant-funding for innovative projects that enable ocean research, promote habitat health, address coastal pollution and maintain sustainable fisheries.

Congratulations to our February 2022 cycle’s recipients and projects:
● Takachar: Smart technology using agricultural waste to produce biochar as a fertilizer alternative, reducing nutrient runoff, increasing crop growth, and sequestering CO2
● Mango Materials: Testing potential of PHA-based tech for direct nutrient removal in wastewater treatment facilities
● Scripps Institution of Oceanography: For the continued sharing of coral reef monitoring technology around the globe, led by Stuart Sandin
● ReefGen Inc/Good Machine: Robotic systems to enable automated seagrass planting
● Experiment Foundation: Provides ocean-focused microgrants for early-stage ocean research and technology projects
● Ocean Exchange: To support the Ocean Exchange Awards program for innovative ocean technologies

Grant selection is competitive and highly selective: only 10% of reviewed projects are awarded funding. The majority of SMTP grantees have received continued support from Schmidt Marine for 3 years or more.

“There is an often-fatal gap in support available for the development of ocean technologies, which typically require something beyond traditional grants in order to achieve full potential and availability,” said SMTP Director Mark Schrope. “SMTP is proud to provide this additional support to promising ocean solutions and the brilliant people developing them.”

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Network that includes The Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, The 11th Hour Project, Schmidt Ocean Institute, 11th Hour Racing and Remain Nantucket.

SMTP awards $1 million to sustain long-term grantees’ existing projects and invested in two new ocean-focused initiatives 

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners (SMTP), a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation, has awarded $1 million in grants to support existing partners and invested an additional $425,000 in two new ocean-focused initiatives this November. The funds support innovative projects that enable ocean research, promote habitat health, address plastic pollution and maintain sustainable fisheries.

Since its founding in 2015, SMTP has contributed funding to the development of more than 50 promising technologies that solve complex ocean health issues and, in most cases, have strong commercialization potential. The program currently supports 38 projects around the world. 

This grant cycle’s recipients and projects include the following:

• Fishtek Marine: Uses electrical pulses to deter sharks from longlines and reduce bycatch.
• GROW Oyster Reefs: Uses the power of biomimicry to jointly restore oyster reefs and seagrass beds. GROW will be working with academic partners at the College of William and Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, and the University of Florida.
• The Bay Foundation & Marauder Robotics: Accelerates the removal of urchins at minimal cost dramatically increasing the ability to restore and maintain kelp forests.   
• American Shore and Beach Preservation Association & Hohonu: Hohonu builds low-cost open source sensors to monitor ocean parameters like sea level, conductivity, pH and temperature. Funding will provide products and related services to ASBPA.   
• WiBotic & University of Washington: Development of wireless underwater charging system to power underwater vehicles and other oceanographic research equipment.

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Network that includes The Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures,The 11th Hour Project,  Schmidt Ocean Institute, 11th Hour Racing and Remain Nantucket.

To learn more about SMTP and our grantees, visit schmidtmarine.org. 

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners (SMTP), a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation, recently awarded over $1.9 million in recurring grant funding to 15 groups developing innovative solutions to protect the ocean ecosystem. The funds will support projects that enable ocean research, promote habitat health, address plastic pollution, and maintain sustainable fisheries.

SMTP was founded in 2015 to support initiatives aimed at the development of promising technologies that solve complex ocean health issues and, in most cases, have strong commercialization potential.

This grant cycle’s recipients and projects include the following:

• CREMA/SafetyNet Technologies: A pilot project to adapt lighting technology for use by gillnet fishers to limit bycatch in Costa Rica
• Induced Polarization Team: A potential new way to detect and categorize contaminants in the ocean using sensor cables
• Oceanic Laboratories: Creation of mass-deployable tools such as a nutrient sensor for ocean monitoring, conservation and industry
• Oceanswell: Microgrants for community-level marine conservation projects in Sri Lanka, and emergency response to toxic waste from the Xpress Pearl oil spill.
• Ocean Visions: A multidisciplinary, multi-sector approach to develop technology road maps that accelerate development of ocean-based carbon dioxide reduction strategies
• ORCA: Passive Underwater Pollution Sensors (PUPS) that can be deployed at very low cost by community scientists to track coastal nutrient pollution sources
• Plant A Million Corals: Restoration of corals using microfragmentation to accelerate growth of and genetic research on coral resilience
• Purple Mai’a Foundation: Support for the Purple Prize, an innovation competition focused on building technology solutions rooted in Native Hawaiian values, startup incubator
• Save the Waves: Partnerships with coastal communities to mobilize local protection of the ecosystem from pollution, poorly planned development and other threats
• Seatrec/University of New Hampshire: Development of a seafloor mapping glider that uses Seatrec’s method to harvest renewable energy using seawater column temperature gradients
• Stone Aerospace/Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum: “Sunfish,” an autonomous mapping robotic system geared towards exploration in extreme environments
• Stop Microwaste!/The Great Bubble Barrier: A bubble-based method to prevent litter from traveling down tributaries into the ocean, without affecting fish migration or ship traffic
• University of Haifa – Derya Akkaynak: SeaThru, an underwater camera that uses a physics-based algorithm to “remove” water from underwater digital imagery
• Wingtrawl: Funding to deploy fuel-saving, bycatch reducing wing trawling systems to shrimpers in the Gulf of Mexico
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution – Anna Michel: Development of a small, lower cost portable gas and pollutant sensor

SMTP is actively supporting 38 projects that use technology to enable ocean research, promote habitat health, eliminate ocean pollution and increase the sustainability of fisheries.

Schmidt Marine Technology Partners is part of the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Network that includes The Schmidt Family Foundation, Schmidt Futures, The 11th Hour Project,  Schmidt Ocean Institute, 11th Hour Racing  and Remain Nantucket.