Using Artificial Intelligence to Combat Illegal Fishing and Modern-Day Slavery

Oxford e-Research Centre

16 Jun 2022
7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Dr Trevor Thomas, Chief Data Scientist, Oceanmind Ltd

More than 80% of all life on Earth dwells in our ocean, producing over half of the planet’s oxygen. 3 billion people derive their protein from seafood. 1 in 8 people depend on the sea to earn their livelihood. The ocean regulates our weather and our climate.

Yet the ocean is under dire threat from human activity and the relentless effects of climate change. It is estimated that 60% of the world’s major marine ecosystems have been degraded or used unsustainably. Thousands of ocean species are threatened with extinction.
Oceanmind has developed algorithms which daily analyse hundreds of thousands of fishing vessel tracks derived from GPS-based location transmissions to determine whether the vessel is fishing or not, what kind of fishing it is undertaking, where is it fishing, which ports it visits and where and when it obtain supplies and transfers its catch to refrigerated carrier vessels. We then use other sources of information about vessel licences and the locations of restricted areas to determine whether the vessel is fishing legally or might benefit from inspection the next time it goes to port.
We will provide an overview of the algorithms used and some measures of algorithm performance

Bio:

Dr Trevor Thomas is Chief Data Scientist at Oceanmind Ltd, a not-for-profit company based in Harwell UK, which provides enforcement and, compliance information to protect the world’s oceans. His whole career has been spent developing pattern matchers to decode time-based signals in a variety of fields such as speech recognition and audio processing, and now works developing new algorithms to provide insight into vessel activity.

Hybrid Meeting

This event will be held both “in person” and “via Zoom”.

“In Person” Logistics

The “in person” meeting will be held at our usual meeting place: OeRC, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, OX1 3QG. The meeting will commence at 7:30pm, and an assortment of light refreshments will be available beforehand. Please register for the event as usual using the Eventbrite link on the website or via MeetUp, where you will be able to indicate whether you are attending via Zoom or in person.

Covid Guidelines

As the Covid infection is still with us , we would request that “in person” attendees follow some sensible guidelines, summarised below:

  • please don’t attend if you have any Covid symptoms or test positive
  • respect other attendees by maintaining social distancing both in the lecture theatre, and when socialising before the event
  • please wear masks when not eating
  • we would recommend talking a Lateral Flow Test before attending the event

We will be maximising the ventilation on the lecture theatre, so attendees should be prepared for the lecture theatre to be cooler than usual.

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We are Back!!!

After 2 years for running Branch meetings via Zoom, our next event, on 14 April, “Big Data Computing in Healthcare” will be held both “in person” and “via Zoom”. (If this is successful, and virus cases do not escalate, we hope that subsequent meetings will also be of this hybrid type.)

“In Person” Logistics

The “in person” meeting will be held at our usual meeting place: OeRC, University of Oxford, 6 Keble Road, OX1 3QG. The meeting will commence at 7:30pm, and light refreshments will be available beforehand. Please register for the event as usual using the Eventbrite link on the website or via MeetUp, where you will be able to indicate whether you are attending via Zoom or in person.

Covid Guidelines

As the Covid infection is still with us , we would request that “in person” attendees follow some sensible guidelines, summarised below:

  • please don’t attend if you have any Covid symptoms or test positive
  • respect other attendees by maintaining social distancing both in the lecture theatre, and when socialising before the event
  • please ware masks when not eating
  • we would recommend talking a Lateral Flow Test before attending the event

We will be maximising the ventilation on the lecture theatre, so attendees should be prepared for the lecture theatre to be cooler than usual.

We therefore look forward to welcoming you on 14 April, whether attending in person or via Zoom, for what should be an interesting talk.