On Tuesday, the UNC-Wilmington Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Alliance for the Blue Economy held the latest iteration of the Ocean Innovation Conference. The all-day event took place at UNCW’s Burney Center and attracted attendees from across North Carolina and beyond for a program revolving around support for and enrichment from coastal innovation.
The day began with an hour’s worth of registration and coffee time, which doubled as an opportunity for attendees to interact with sponsors and founders. A number of startups working in the blue economy space hosted tables, showcasing products that ranged from AI-adjusted seawalls to eel-like underwater robots (more on both of those later).
The program began following assorted welcome remarks from organizers Heather McWhorter (Executive Director, CIE) and Lydia Thomas, as well as UNCW Provost Dr. Robert T. Burrus Jr. Below, you’ll find a brief look back at the different sessions and related takeaways.
Opening Speaker Session
The opening speaker was John Hardin, the Executive Director of the Office of Science, Technology, and Innovation at the NC Department of Commerce.
Hardin primarily talked attendees through the state’s “Tracking Innovation” report for 2026, which uses 41 measures and consists of more than 150 charts and 200 pages—a longer report than we’ve seen in the past, though Hardin joked that this was mostly due to larger font.
The report ranks North Carolina 9th nationally in innovation, marking a first foray into the top 10, with Hardin offering some closing thoughts connecting this success to ongoing blue innovation.
Key Takeaways:
- Innovation jobs pay higher wages and grow faster
- An innovation ecosystem is like a heart; if any part of it is weak, overall output won’t be strong.
Panel 1: From Pilot to Scale: Commercializing the Blue Economy
Moderator: Scott Davis (Wilmington Hub Director, NCInnovation)
Panelists: Joe Cardenas (Chief Business Development Officer, Telchine Energy Technologies), Christy Swann (Founder, RCOAST), and Wallace Hogsett (Founder, HurriLab)
As was noted in an agenda preview before the conference, ocean and coastal technologies often struggle to reach commercial scale, even if they’ve succeeded in pilots. This panel focused on what it takes to bridge that gap and turn a promising blue technology into a sustainable company—with each member bringing experience from different stages of the process.
In large part, this turned into a series of tips on what founders can do to prioritize business development and growth over raw fundraising.
Key Takeaways:
- Hogsett advised founders to prioritize finding repeat customers early so as to make revenue grow faster than cost.
- Swann shared that in her experience, investors prefer to see traction than non-dilutive funding.
- Swann and Davis together made the observation that it’s typical to ask an investor for money and receive advice—but that Swann asked for advice and eventually got money.
*Notably, nobody in this session was able to clearly articulate the difference between a hurricane and a nor’easter.
Attendees Devise Pitches
There was something of a break in formal programming following the first panel, though the organizers came up with an entertaining exercise worth mentioning. Basically, attendees joined others at their tables to come up with fresh startup ideas in the blue economy space—and, after some time, “pitch” those ideas to the audience.
The three startups the audience heard from included “Kelp” (like Yelp for seafood sourcing); an early-warning storm system specifically for keeping boats from getting stranded on the shoreline; and, to correct for the preceding panel’s hurricane-versus-nor’easter struggles, a means of determining which category a storm falls into.
Keynote Address
Hanli Prinsloo (Founder, I Am Water; Co-Founder, Agulhas; freediving champion)
It’s safe to say that the post-lunch keynote address at this year’s Ocean Innovation Conference was distinctly unlike what one typically experiences at ecosystem events.
Hanli Prinsloo is a professional writer, speaker, and conservationist. She’s also a globe-trotting, freediver with a five-plus-minute breath hold and numerous records under her belt—so, naturally, she started her talk by leading the entire room in a kind of breathing exercise-slash-meditation.
During that opening, attendees were asked to imagine themselves floating up into the atmosphere to look down at just how blue the planet is (with Prinsloo asserting—one can’t say illogically—that it really ought to be called “Planet Ocean” instead of Planet Earth). From there, she eased into a sprawling tour of a life and career spent largely in the water.
Prinsloo told several incredible stories speaking to the almost spiritual connection she’s established with nature. We won’t recount them all here, though suffice it to say one involved a pod of wild sperm whales seemingly choosing her to “babysit” a calf while they dove to the depths for a hunt.
What Prinsloo’s session rounded into, though, was a call to love the ocean, not just to enrich one’s own life or spirit, but because, as she put it, “we protect what we love.”
Key Takeaways:
- “We hold the wellbeing of giants that can obliterate us in their space in the palm of our hand,” she said, speaking to our responsibility as the most powerful beings on “Planet Ocean.”
- Incentives matter, but love ultimately drives action.
- Whatever you’re doing, she closed with, “you also have the job of being the baby sperm whale’s babysitter.”
Panel 2: Digital Ocean: AI, Data, Cybersecurity, and Maritime Security
Moderator: Dana Magliola (Senior Director of Infrastructure Competitiveness, NC Chamber Foundation)
Panelists: Adam Berthold (Co-Founder, Deep Marine Innovations), Ulku Clark (Professor, UNCW), Dan Blackburn (Director of Information Technology, NC Ports)
This panel tackled a topic one might never think of if one isn’t specifically involved in coastal technology… or attending an Ocean Innovation Conference. As ports, vessels, and assorted coastal and off-shore equipment becomes increasingly connected and tech-based, we face new, digital vulnerabilities. The panelists discussed both needs and methods for confronting those vulnerabilities, and in doing so ensuring the safe growth and expansion of the “digital ocean.”
Key Takeaways:
- There are not only general cybersecurity concerns in this space, but connected national security concerns as well (point made with respect to captured or destroyed maritime infrastructure, etc.).
- The digital ocean was defined in part as an aim for continual awareness, with suggestion being made that we should aspire to have the same insight into ocean systems as we have into traffic.
Panel 3: From Sea to Table: Feeding the Future
Moderator: Chuck Weirich (Director of Aquaculture, UNCW)
Panelists: Cristi Dorry (Founder, C. Dorry Consulting), Bob Lorenz (Social and Economic Panel Member, South Atlantic Fishery Management Council), and Conor MacNair (Founder, N. SEA Oyster Co.)
Straying somewhat (but not entirely) from technological innovation, these panelists discussed the vital role of seafood and aquaculture (okay, editor’s confession, this was a new word for me, but it’s what it sounds like) in sustaining our food system.
The bulk of the conversation wound up revolving around the difficult challenges local fishermen and farmers face, both in competing with commercial counterparts and, primarily, in finding organized state and community support. Indeed, more than the other panels, this one amounted to a direct call for more support
Key Takeaways:
- Pitches were made by panelists for both events (“shutting down” UNCW for a day for a local oyster farmer fair of sorts) and marketing (the state promoting its seafood).
- It should be noted that during Q&A, one audience member pointed out that NC’s commercial fishermen follow strict regulations (as opposed to enjoying the even greater competitive edge of unrestrained activity).
Startup Showcase
In between some of the above panel sessions, four of the startup founders present for the conference took the stage for four-minute pitches (with NC IDEA’s Thom Ruhe moderating and, just once or twice, previewing the Ecosystem Summit heading to Wrightsville Beach November 12-13).
Here’s a look at the startups that presented:
Presented by Co-Founder Adam Berthold (who also spoke on the “Digital Ocean” panel and exhibited in the room), Deep Marine Innovations is an NC-based startup building multipurpose, intelligent, underwater robotics platforms.
Their flagship product is “Moray,” a sort of robotic, propeller-less device that navigates underwater like an eel—providing a silent, efficient tool with uses in stealth communication, security, and more.
Presented by Founder and CEO Dr. Christy Swann, RCOAST bills itself as a 4D data company. Based in Wilmington, the startup is using drone-mounted LiDAR to capture coastline data, measure erosion, and ultimately help the entities working on mitigating that erosion maximize their efforts.
RCOAST recently announced the closing of a $945K pre-seed round. You can also read more about them in a previous feature at GrepBeat.
Based in New York, this startup made the trip down to the Ocean Innovation Conference through a connection with the CIE. Co-founders Pepsy Kettavong and Natalie Sinisgalli-Kettavong presented together, and also had an exhibitor table throughout the event.
Smart Seawall is designing coastal infrastructure that adapts to conditions intelligently and in real time. The startup’s primary product is a seawall that can raise 3-20 feet as needed, based on in-the-moment storm surge data.
Presented by founder Reid Barnett, who was also at an exhibitor table throughout the conference, Ceretune is a Mount Olive, NC-based startup pitching an opportunity to “turn pollution into possibility.”
They’re doing this through the development of what they call Fibrous Aquatic Bioscaffolds, which are biodegradable fabrics that draw carbon and assorted pollutants out of water. Following the showcase, Ceretune was voted the audience favorite from the session.
And that was that for the 2026 Ocean Innovation Conference.
It’s never easy (or, one might argue, even reasonable) to attempt to sum these events up with a single line or sentiment. In this case, though, one of the closing comments from Hanli Prinsloo’s keynote stands out: “What we discuss as an economy is also a community.”
Prinsloo was referring largely to the marine life that exists within the waters upon which the blue economy is built. But the quote also spoke to the efforts of many in the room to establish more awareness and collaboration in the blue innovation space.
