The Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship has partnered with several Nova Scotian groups to create a new program to promote oceantech industries to female high school students.

Exploring Opportunities in Ocean Tech for Young Women is an extracurricular program being offered across the province to young women in Grades 10 to 12 as part of a strategy to attract more under-represented groups to the marine industry.

As well as Dartmouth-based COVE, the partners in the program are: the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (which is contributing $20,000); IGNITE Labs; Dalhousie University’s Emera ideaHUB, and DeepSense.  IBM Canada and Engineers Nova Scotia are also supporting the program.

“At COVE we’ve been delivering exciting, hands-on programming to youth for several years now,” said COVE Executive Director Sherry Scully in a statement. “For this program we wanted to really engage young women in the province by connecting them with other female role models and mentors who can show them that the ocean tech industry is a place where they can explore and build careers.”

The program will feature a monthly speaker series, a mentoring program, and design workshops. and will connect participants to female role models in the oceantech industry. Its goal is increase awareness of the many applications of engineering across the industry and to help participants understand how engineering contributes to innovation across the broad industry.

The program highlights four key oceantech sectors and related technologies: aquaculture and fishing; ship-building and boat-building; marine renewable energy; and marine observation and conservation.

While COVID-19 restrictions remain in place, the program will be offered virtually and move to in-person as it becomes safe to gather again.

You can register for the program here.