The SeaBee Project’s official kick-off meeting took place from 23 to 25 June at Oscarsborg Fortress in Oslo and virtually, marking the start of the project and bringing all host institutions together for 3 days of discussion and workshops. Between 18 to 22 people participated live at the fortress and 10 to 15 joined in via Teams.
NIVA’s research director, Chris Harman, welcomed attendees and opened the workshop. “We’re proud to host and coordinate the SeaBee project, as it fits well into several of NIVA’s strategic goals with regards to blue growth, more efficient environmental monitoring, and creating cost-efficient solutions for research and monitoring,” he noted.
Seabee as concept was initiated during a meeting in April 2018 between NINA, NIVA, NR, and IMR in Trondheim to combine forces of each institutions’ own drone programs. NTNU, GRID-Arendal, SpectroFly and ASC were later invited for a joint proposal to the Research Council of Norway, with the infrastructure call submitted in October 2018.
Kasper Hancke, Senior Research Scientist at NIVA and SeaBee’s lead, guided participants through the 3 days of workshops and team building with the goal of transforming the SeaBee visions into actions.