In an event hosted by Norwegian Prime Minister of Norway, Ms Erna Solberg, the United Nations had the ocean on the agenda to promote action and international partnerships to strengthen conservation and sustainable use of our oceans and marine resources.

- In solving our sustainability challenges we need to cooperate across both borders and between the private and the public sector. As regulators we need to have a multinational governance of the oceans, and facilitate for innovation and technology development. Companies together with research have to come up with the solutions, Ms Erna Solberg said. 

Ms Solberg is co-chair of the group of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advocates, working to promote awareness, ownership and results in the global SDG campaign, where Norway has taken a leading role for the goals related to the oceans.

- It is important for Norway as a nation who has lived of and with the oceans for centuries that we take a leading role for the future of the oceans.Technology companies like KONGSBERG play an important role. They have the knowledge and competence to innovate the solutions we need for a sustainable development, Ms Erna Solberg said.        

Amongst the high-level speakers and panel participants consisting of political leaders, the business sector, academia, research and organisations, Executive Vice President of KONGSBERG and President of Kongsberg Digital Hege Skryseth spoke on behalf of business promoting technology and innovation as crucial for ocean development and the UN global goals.

- For Norway as a country dominated by ocean industry and seafarers for so many years I am very glad that we are sharing our knowledge and commitment on the global scene towards the sustainable development goals. As a technology company involved in so many facets of the ocean, from deep down on the ocean floor to satellite and space technology for maritime operations, we also want to contribute. It was a great pleasure to have the opportunity to share some of our viewpoints with such an important group at the UN, says Skryseth.

- A HUGE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY
Representing the business side, Skryseth gave a clear message that KONGSBERG and technology companies see the oceans and the development of sustainable technology as a great business opportunity.

- For us technology for sustainability is a great business opportunity. With estimates for a doubling of the ocean economy to approximately 3.000 billion dollars in 2030 we have several opportunities to use our technology and knowledge base to develop new technology within both the industries we are in and new ones, Skryseth said highlighting the need for close collaboration to fully utilize the opportunities of the oceans.

- I wanted to highlight that the challenges we face for a sustainable development need to be solved in collaboration between government, industry, research and organisations, and it has to be done across borders.

ELECTRIFIED OCEAN TRANSPORT AND INDUSTRIALIZED FISH FARMING

In her statement Skryseth highlighted both sustainable transport exemplified by the world’s first fully electric and autonomous containerfeeder, “Yara Birkeland”, and industrialized fish farms as considerable opportunities. In addition Skryseth pointed out that digitalization holds a huge potential, if the amounts of data shared increases.

- I had one request to the participants concerning data. With the vast amounts of sensors in the oceans that both research, companies and authorities possess, I urged the need to share. I strongly believe that we need to share knowledge about the oceans to a much larger extent, which with the technological developments we have had the last few years will give many new opportunities.

- This is pivotal for the next frontier of technology and innovation for developing new solutions for our oceans that can contribute to reaching the sustainable development goals, said Skryseth.