"AQUA 2024 will be a showcase for Denmark, and its innovation leadership in several key technologies crucial for future aquaculture, but also a meeting and exchange platform for experts from around the world," say organisers.
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One of the key events in European aquaculture will open its doors today in Copenhagen: AQUA 2024, organised by the European Aquaculture Society.
The event will take place during 26-30 August in the Danish capital, and includes a scientific conference, trade exhibition, industry forums, workshops, student events and receptions.
According to the organisers, "The event will highlight the latest aquaculture research and innovation to underpin continued growth of this exciting food production sector."
"It will be a showcase for Denmark, and its innovation leadership in several key technologies crucial for future aquaculture, but also a meeting and exchange platform for experts from around the world."
This year's event features plenary speakers Dag Sletmo, Senior Vice President in the seafood division in leading Norwegian bank DNB, and Signe Riemer-Sørensen, Senior Researcher and Research Manager for Analytics and AI in SINTEF Norway.
In his keynote, entitled "Analysing the Future", Sletmo is due to "share his top-down financial perspective on what it will take to grow aquaculture production significantly".
"FAO says we need to increase sustainable aquaculture production by at least 75% by 2040 if we are going to limit global warming to 1.5C... The demand drivers are in place, the challenge is increasing supply and at the same time reduce the environmental footprint," Sletmo writes.
"That will require new technology, better farming practises, and better regulations. As an industry depending very much on government regulations, it also needs a strong social license in order to achieve these goals. And where will the money to finance this come from?"
Sletmo notes that while DNB Bank’s aquaculture activities is very focused on salmon, he also intends to address aquaculture more generally in his keynote.
The second keynote speaker at this year's event is SINTEF AI specialist Signe Riemer-Sørensen, who will talk about "AI with Knowledge" and its potential applications of AI in aquaculture, explaining challenges, providing insights, and introducing the latest developments in industrial AI.
According to the conference programme, Riemer-Sørensen's research focuses on "overcoming challenges for implementing machine learning and artificial intelligence in a broad range of industrial settings where physics plays a role and data is often sparse and noisy. The solutions integrate domain knowledge into the AI, in so-called hybrid AI, fostering robust, explainable and trustworthy models."
The AQUA events are co-organised by the European Aquaculture Society (EAS) and the World Aquaculture Society (WAS) and are held every six years at different European locations. Past events were held in Nice (2000), Florence (2006), Prague (2012) and Montpellier (2018).
This year's main sponsor is Danish aquaculture nutrition specialise BioMar.