Introductions

NickOttens

Please introduce yourself to the rest of the community here. Tell us a bit about yourself, your projects and your relation to XPRIZE.

DanSelz

Hi All, I'm Dan Selz, I work at XPRIZE on the Impact & Design Team and am excited to be part of the team spearheading the design of this prize! Please feel free to reach out and introduce yourself and let me know how I can help.

Charles Gregory

Hi,
I'm Dr Charlie Gregory an aquatic specialized veterinarian. I've been growing coral since 1990 and have a masters degree on aquaculture. Ive grown coral commercially for the aquarium trade exploring chemistry, physical needs, and diseases. Now I work for a non profit that grows corals in schools. We are just finishing building a research and seedbank coral facility with lights and monitoring to support natural spawning cycles.

anupa

I'm Anupa Asokan and I work at XPRIZE on the Ocean Initiative team. I look forward to your input and feedback as we design this prize to help save coral reefs!

Victor Jongeneel

I am Victor Jongeneel. I am a molecular and computational biologist by training, and now that I am retired I have become involved in coral restoration efforts on the island of Curacao, where I live. I was one of the members of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Archon Genomics X-Prize, back in 2010-2011, so I have a pretty good understanding of the processes involved in designing and running an X-Prize challenge. Btw, the Genomics X-Prize was not awarded, because the potential competitors were concerned about the negative publicity they could receive if they didn't win the prize. In any case, I hope that I can bring my practical experience with growing corals in nurseries and outplanting them on damaged reefs to help design this new Grand Challenge.

aje191

Hi, I'm Alasdair Edwards. I am a semi-retired coral reef ecologist who has worked intermittently on coral reef rehabilitation since the late 1980s. In 2007 I worked with Prof Ed Gomez (Philippines) to publish "Reef Restoration Concepts and Guidelines: making sensible management choices in the face of uncertainty." [ISBN 978-1-921317-00-2]. This was a short (~40 pp.) guide for managers (also published in French, Spanish and Indonesian) which I later expanded (2010) with help from numerous colleagues into a ~170 pp. "Reef Rehabilitation Manual" [ISBN 978-1-921317-05-7], also aimed at practitioners. Both were published as part of the international World Bank/GEF funded Coral Reef Targeted Research and Capacity Building for Management project (2004-2010). One aim of the "Manual" was to introduce key restoration concepts developed by the Society for Ecological Restoration to the coral reef community. These are encapsulated in the SER International Primer on Ecological Restoration (https://www.ser.org/resource/resmgr/custompages/publications/ser_publications/ser_primer.pdf) and more recently in their International Standards for the Practice of Ecological Restoration. I haven't yet been able to fully follow your discussions but feel that these SER publications may prove useful foundations when trying to design goals and timeframes. I look forward to reading more about your discussions so far.

Diverman

I am Henry Tonnemacher, an Environmental Biologist working in the Caribbean since 1971. I have preformed actual "Reef Restorations", NOT reef introductions, i.e. returning a reef community to it's most recent condition after a human induced event (ship grounding, etc.) altered that reef.

c_monster

Hi - I am Mikhail "Misha" Matz from the University of Texas at Austin, I study coral adaptation using genomics and evolutionary modeling (matzlab.weebly.com). Ask me anything about issues related to coral adaptation or coral genetics when planning restoration efforts. I also have a rant about how we need more radical measures than just planting a lot of corals to actually save Caribbean reefs, but I will start a separate discussion on this.

Ewoutknoester

Hi all! I'm Ewout Knoester, managing the REEFolution Kenya restoration project and pursuing a PhD in which I hope to harness new ecological insights to make the coral gardening process more efficient and successful. As the project is located in Kenya, where demand for labour is high and manpower relatively low-cost, we're looking for techniques that can be easily learned and applied by the coastal communities (read: restoring by snorkelling & using tidal differences instead of SCUBA diving), so that the techniques can be replicated all along the coastline.

NickOttens

Thank you for joining us! The Coral Restoration Prize Design is now concluded and we're hoping to launch the prize soon.

In the meantime, please feel free to browse the other communities that are active. You will find links in the menu to your right.

mattymatt

Hi Everyone! My name is Matt and I am so excited to have the opportunity to become a part of this community. I am currently in my last gap year before I attend medical school next year and I have huge passion for science / innovation. The preservation of the Ocean holds a deep spot in my heart and I would love to be able to combat climate change for all organisms in the world. Overall, I don't have to much expertise in any specific fields yet, but I would love to contribute to any positive change for society in any way I can.