After sailing more than 40 thousand nautical kilometers and into 14 countries on Unreasonable at Sea, we ported in Spain for our culminating event. The technology companies who sailed around the world with us had 6 minutes to share the story of their company to hundreds of people packed into an auditorium in Barcelona. This is one of those talks.
The entrepreneurs in this video are Gabriella Levine & Cesar Harada of Protei – Ocean Drones For Oil Spills.
Company Description in 100 Words or Less
The ocean covers more than 70% of the surface of our planet and yet remains largely unexplored. Our water is filling up with plastic debris, radioactive material, oil spills, and industrial and agricultural run-offs. Even if we stopped producing plastic now, plastic debris would continue to break down and accumulate in the ocean for the next 50 years.
What if we were capable of deploying sailing robots anywhere, anytime in the ocean? Tweet This Quote
Protei is a durable, wind-powered solution to remediate such problems. The team has created a shape-shifting sailing robot that is unprecedentedly robust, agile, and powerful and used to sense and clean the ocean. It will be used to clean up oil spills and plastic in the ocean, as well as collect invaluable data about our environment. In order to grow rapidly, they’ve developed Protei Open Hardware – a plug and play sailing robot fleet, which can be Android-operated and remotely controlled via a simple web browser from a PC, laptop or mobile device. Visit company website
Major Milestones
- Fundraised $30,000 from Kickstarter.
- Launched open source hardware.
- Developed over 10 generations of prototypes.