Imagine a place where maritime industry partners work to adopt advanced technologies, stimulate entrepreneurship, promote knowledge transfer, incubate businesses and advance workforce development.
At or around the third quarter of 2022, you won’t have to imagine it. It will be a reality at the Port of Seattle’s Fishermen’s Terminal, where planning and design are underway for the Maritime Innovation Center, or Minc.
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The Minc will be located in the former Seattle Ship Supply building, which has been vacant for two decades. The port is working with architecture firm Miller Hull to design a building that will meet the requirements of the Living Building Challenge, a green building certification program and sustainable design framework.
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The Minc is part of a partnership between the Port of Seattle, the Washington State Department of Commerce and other partners, called Washington Maritime Blue. The goal is to ensure that the state of Washington is home to a world-class, thriving and sustainable maritime industry through 2050 and beyond.
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Although the Minc isn’t built yet, programming is underway. In December 2019, the port announced its first cohort of 11 companies participating in the Maritime Blue Innovation Accelerator Program.
Beam Reach catalyzes marine research and education about the oceans, bioacoustics, and sustainability across the critical habitat of endangered orcas — Northern California to British Columbia — with a focus on Puget Sound and the Salish Sea to empower future generations to protect our orca population.
Discovery Health MD offers a suite of services to improve health at every stage of a mariner’s career, reduce an employer’s risk exposure, and alleviate the fear and anxiety of delivering medical care at sea.
EcoSPEARS is a cleantech solutions company using green, NASA-developed environmental technology for cost-effective, sustainable, and permanent extraction and destruction of persistent environmental toxins.
eOceans is building data and analytical software to make sure ocean science keeps pace with business, society and ocean change.
Equll’s digital platform helps eliminate waste and inefficiencies through technological solutions that directly connect truck owner/operators and shippers by automating the entire process with no hassle.
Net Your Problem provides fishing gear recycling services to fishermen and fishing companies. The collected gear is upcycled into raw plastic that’s transformed into a variety of products such as kayaks, bathing suites, carpets, and office furniture.
oneTank markets, sells, assembles, tests and delivers oneTank: the simplest, smallest, lowest consumption, and lowest-cost ballast-water treatment system.
OneForNeptune is changing the food industry with healthy, high-protein snack foods made from sustainable seafood products.
Pure Watercraft develops high-performance electric outboard motors and battery packs to enable a new era of enjoyable, accessible, environmentally friendly boating.
SPBES provides high power lithium-ion energy storage to hybridize or electrify heavy industrial equipment. Purpose-engineered for the rigors of the commercial maritime industry. SPBES is safer and longer-lasting than any other product on the market.
MER Equipment is building a new engine exhaust gas after-treatment system, which reduces fuel consumption while also decreasing nitrogen oxides as particulate matter. This technology is a lighter, smaller, less costly alternative to diesel engines.
Across the companies, this cohort will focus on advancing decarbonization, environmental remediation, maritime workforce protections, sustainability, electrification, digitization, and conservation education. These founders come from a variety of stages in their startup journey, from pre-launch to launched to high growth. More than 30 percent of the companies are founded by women, and 70 percent are headquartered in Washington state.
