The mission of SOA Hub Japan is to become the leading network for ocean youth leaders in Japan. This grant will allow them to build out their website, pitch materials and build out Hub Membership base. They brought on 10 initial members to fill leadership roles and hosted a series of webinars featuring Japanese ocean leaders. They used initial momentum to continue to grow their membership. They are now organizing a prototype of an ocean youth leadership summit & training program in Tokyo.

Novoloop is an emerging leader in plastic circularity, innovating post-consumer plastic waste into performance materials. Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the venture-backed start-up has raised $25M to date and is building and scaling new technologies to reinvent the chemical value chain. By transforming hard-to-recycle plastic waste into virgin-quality materials, Novoloop offers superior sustainability and performance at competitive pricing. With its upcycled TPU product, Novoloop provides thermoplastic polyurethane solutions for footwear, sporting goods, automotive and more. To learn more, visit novoloop.com.

Mi Manglar involves the local community in mangrove education, cleanup, monitoring and restoration. They will plant 1,000 seedlings across .2 hectares and create a group of "guardians" to monitor the site.

Coral Vita grows climate change resilient coral up to 50x faster to restore dying reefs using a land-based farming model to scale up restoration, selling this service to customers who depend on the ecosystem services that reefs provide.

This research project focuses on a natural self-defense chemical used by the sea cucumber species, Synaptula reticulata. The researchers hope to synthesize this natural repellent in the lab in order to use it as a natural pesticide for aqualculturists, which in turn can lead to faster growth rates and lower mortality of aquaculture-grown fish. With the funding, researchers will be conducting a background investigation to estimate population abundance of this sea cucumber, as well as conducting initial tests on extracting and synthesizing their chemical repellent. They will publish and share their findings with a wide audience.

SpeSeas raises awareness about key ocean issues in Trinidad and Tobago, led by a founding team of ocean science experts, including Diva Amon, who has worked in close partnership with SOA's Campaign Against Deep Sea Mining. With SOA support, they will amplify their social media presence, helping them to grow their network and make ocean literacy more accessible in the country.

This project seeks to understand the public's perception of offshore aquaculture in southern California (Santa Barbara and Venture Counties). Public perception has previously been an obstacle to implementation and the survey results informed communication and engagement strategies for Ocean Rainforest, a commercial kelp producer. Additionally, an executive summary was created and distributed to key stakeholders and interest groups.

The Let the Sea Turtle Live Project is a continuation of a project started in 2019 by our Regional Representative, Forbi Perise. For this project, he and his team go to coastal communities in Cameroon to educate fishers about the importance of Sea Turtle Conservation, as they are still targeted in many communities for food.

Ocean Leader Maulidi Mwinkyikai, manager of Kishoka Youth Organization, planted 1,000 mangroves across 36 hectares in the coastal areas of Port Reitz Creek in coastal Kenya. 50 people were trained in sustainable bee keeping, with the aim of empowering them to generate revenue from the sale of honey and related goods, and 20 people were provided income through repurposing and upcycling plastic waste.