OnDeck Fisheries AI Wins $25K in Dempsey Startup Competition

OnDeck Fisheries AI, founded by students from Simon Fraser University, have won the top prize at the 25th annual Dempsey Startup Competition which comes with $25,000 in funding. The competition is hosted by the University of Washington’s Foster School Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship.

The 2022 Competition featured 36 teams of students residing in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, and British Columbia. 

OnDeck Fisheries AI won based on their AI-based fish monitoring solution. These young scientists set out to develop a solution to address the problem of declining global fish stocks by helping commercial fisheries automatically analyze what they catch at sea. Their solution leverages machine learning and computer vision to optimize monitoring practices.

A third of everything caught at sea is never reported and this misreporting is a direct contributor to the global collapse of fisheries. There is no way to sustainably manage fisheries when the catch data is faulty, forged, and entirely wrong. This automated catch monitoring system is scalable, fast, and affordable. 

By automating the monitoring process, there is less reliance on human accuracy and honesty and reduces the workload required by fishermen overall.

In addition to the $25,000 Dempsey Startup prize, the team won an additional $25,000 from the Herbert B. Jones Foundation and $5,000 from the Glympse Internet of Things.

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