1000OS Africa Side Event - 11th Our Ocean Conference

​What does it actually take to move an ocean venture from pipeline to scale in Africa?

​Join us for the official launch of the 1000 Ocean Startups Africa Regional Community as an offical side event of the 11th Our Ocean Conference. This session brings together entrepreneurs, ecosystem builders, investors, and catalytic funders to surface the stories, tools, and structural gaps that rarely make it onto the conference stage — and to name, on record, what coordination across the ecosystem genuinely requires.

​The session features three structured exchanges on Africa's ocean innovation: the handoffs that worked or failed, the tools that worked for ocean ventures but never scaled, and the asks the ecosystem hasn't made publicly.

​Speakers

• ​Ambassador Nancy Karigithu — Special Envoy for Shipping and Blue Economy, Kenya (Opening Remarks)

• ​Alexis Grosskopf — Founder, ForSea Invest (Moderator)

• ​Ron Tardiff — Ocean Innovation Lead, World Economic Forum (Closing Remarks)

​Segment 1: The State of Africa's Ocean Innovation

• ​David Ogiga, Co-Founder, Sote Hub

• ​Herland Cerveaux, Managing Director, OceanHub Africa

​Segment 2: The Contiuum

• ​Hannah Eskinder — TECA Program Manager, BFA Global

• ​Maarten Derksen — Program Manager, DOEN Foundation

• ​Brenda Kibiku — OBF Blue Finance Innovation Cluster Lead, GIZ

• ​Dorothy Maseke — Head of ANCA Secretariat & Lead, Nature Finance and TNFD at FSD Africa.

​Hosted by 1000OS Africa — the Africa Regional Community of 1000 Ocean Startups, a World Economic Forum-hosted coalition. Since this event is hosted under the official conference, you will require accreditation to the summit in order to attend.