The Ocean Recovery Alliance uses ProFinda to connect academics and innovators

The challenge

Around 10 million tonnes of plastic currently ends up in the oceans each year, where it proves fatal to many marine creatures, including turtles, sea-birds, dolphins and seals. These problems are compounded by the fact that it can take hundreds of years to biodegrade.

The Ocean Recovery Alliance exists to bring together new ways of thinking, technology, creativity and collaboration to improve the ocean environment. As part of this, it created the Plasticity Forum – a network where likeminded industry professionals and change-agents could come together to solve the problems caused by plastic ocean waste. The Plasticity Forum needed to find an effective way to connect working professionals, academics and innovators across the world.

The solution

By the end of the project almost 2000 individual profiles will voluntarily have been created on ProFinda’s platform, detailing each person’s type and level of expertise, plus their expert knowledge areas and skills. The platform allows each person to discover one another and network with their peers.

To help increase uptake and effective use of the tool, a series of workshops were set up between the Ocean Recovery Alliance and ProFinda’s community management team – creating a successful network which connects people from all corners of the Earth.

The platform has also created a digital home for the Ocean Recovery Alliance’s conferences and events, which are attended by hundreds of experts from across the globe every year. ProFinda is used to showcase and communicate their latest events and to extend invites to the community.

The results

Using ProFinda has resulted in the creation of a digital community, brought together and committed to reducing plastic pollution in our oceans. Off the back of the platform, annual events are communicated much more effectively to the community, and experts are able to network and work with other to reduce the ocean’s plastic waste.