Question - Why focusing the association's missions on raising awareness among high school and university students of the new professions of the Blue Economy?

 

Yvan Griboval - “When I returned to the Yacht Club de Monaco on June 2, 2017 at the end of the OceanoScientific Around the World Expedition 2016-2017, I brought back a single word from my adventure: "EFFICACITY", which I have been trying to put into practice ever since ...as efficiently as possible! 

 

Directing our oceanographic campaigns to serve Humanity is a first step. Indeed, we made a start on this theme last year with the OceanoScientific eDNA Mediterranean Expedition 2023.

 

In 2005-2006, the reason I decided to turn my attention to a philanthropic activity aimed at improving our knowledge of the Ocean, so as to better preserve it for future generations, was because I was about to become a father again. Because I realize that my son or daughter will never know Nature as it was in the 60s and 70s, when I spent most of my free time on the foreshore of the Pays de Caux (Normandy - France) and in the coastal strip of no more than one nautical mile (1,852 meters) where fishing resources flourished in profusion and seemed inexhaustible.

 

When the expected child turned out to be two identical twins and their sister, thus triplets (!), my convictions were reinforced. I then gradually abandoned my original field of activity - event communications in the field of sports sailing - to devote myself progressively, and then 100%, to the development of what has become the OceanoScientific philanthropic association of general interest. In this process, Cécile d'Estais-Griboval, my wife and the Super Mom of the triplets, joined the OceanoScientific association very early on, driven by the same energy as I am, to work with passion, obviously thinking of the generation of our soon-to-be 17-year-old children, but above all of future generations, without distinction of any kind, neither origin nor nationality.

 

Two other stages were decisive.

 

The first was when our triplets, born in June 2007, were around ten years old and I had just returned from my solo trip around the Planet. I explained to them the need to take an interest in as many subjects as possible, in anticipation of their professional lives in professions that probably didn't yet exist. Hence the imperative need to be curious and not to limit their dreams in any way. Because what is impossible one day will be obvious the next, if you are determined not to be constrained in your thinking or actions.

 

The second stage is more recent. It took place just over a year ago. When the three youngsters, well into the "exquisite" period of adolescence, found themselves in Seconde (first year of High School in France) with a choice of three specialties. This fundamental choice was the preamble to dropping one of the three specialties at the end of Première (second year of High School in France). And to round off Terminale (last year of High School in France) with a tighter selection of subjects to fit the mold of Parcoursup (a French platform for admission to superior education). In short, the exact opposite of what I recommended to our triplets five years earlier!

 

At a time when thousands of new professions are emerging in all fields, thanks in particular to ever more powerful tools - not to mention the contribution of Artificial Intelligence! - why should we limit the academic achievements of this young generation on the pretext of adapting to a mold based on an educational system from another century?

 

When I was between twenty and thirty years old, in 1970-90, being self-taught with no qualifications was potentially a huge handicap. That wasn't my case, and I am proud of it. Today, self-taught status is more of an asset than a hindrance to an exciting career in a new profession. A professional activity that you can design and develop yourself, thanks to the many advantages offered by both the French state and local authorities. No other country offers young people such opportunities. Let's help them make the most of them.”

 

Question - How are you going to reconcile the major missions of the OceanoScientific association with this impetus towards the new emerging professions of the Blue Economy?

 

Yvan Griboval - “First of all, an observation. Many teenagers are developing a school phobia and find themself totally demotivated to the point of having no interest whatsoever in high school courses "when there is everything you want on the Internet", as the recalcitrant teenagers keeps telling us. 

 

We have to admit that the number of those we call "National Education Castaways" is significant: demotivated children, disillusioned young students.

 

And yet, never before has the maritime sector and its extensions been so synonymous with future employment, except perhaps in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But even then, I doubt it. At that time, there were no universal means of communication available, which today offer an international audience to the slightest word spoken on social networks, tools for global development among others...

 

A simple example. The Australians broke off the contract with France to supply them with submarines. The Americans and the British used whatever arguments they could to discredit our country and our skills in this field. But they recently retracted their decision, announcing that it would be impossible to deliver the famous Anglo-Saxon submarines. The reason? A lack of qualified manpower, due to a lack of training courses adapted to the new technologies developed by ever more creative engineers, and to ever more sophisticated materials.

 

In our field of using of genetics applied to marine organisms from French coral reefs, many tasks, expressions of biomimicry, need to be invented to establish an effective link between: the collection of tiny samples; DNA sequencing; the research and the valorization of molecules of interest; and the industrial and commercial use that could be made of them in the end.

 

As part of the highly innovative projects we are working on, we would like to point out that, as far as the valorization of (digital) genetic data and the marketing of products derived from it are concerned, we are lobbying the French authorities to ensure that any patent relating to the use of living organisms remains inalienably held by a third party in the territory of origin of the sequenced samples. No less. This is a major advance on the international rules governed by the famous Nagoya Protocol, which, as far as I'm concerned, is unfortunately as effective as a tennis racket without strings.

 

Of course, we have, directly or indirectly, strictly no financial or other interest in the exploitation of these digital data derived from living organisms.

 

We have been working on this project for two years under the name REssources FRAnçaises CORalliennes - REFRACOR 2030. We will have a chance to explain the ins and outs in a few weeks' time, once we are at sea on our first tropical mission.

 

Thanks to the decisive contribution of geneticist Professor Christian Siatka - presented in his role as Vice-President of the OceanoScientific association in the Newsletter of January 10 - and his experience as Director of the Genotyping and Genomics platform of the École de l’ADN, but also as designer and supplier of DNA kits to several hundred teachers of Life and Earth Sciences (LES) in middle and high schools, it will be possible, on April 17, 18 and 19, to raise awareness among 15 to 19 year-olds of the use of DNA applied to marine organisms in the reefs in front of their homes.

 

On board the Lagoon 570, transformed into the OceanoScientific Explorer LOVE THE OCEAN, we will be carrying out in-situ sequencing workshops in the lagoon, under the guidance of Professor Christian Siatka, Scientific Director of the OceanoScientific Coral Reefs Expeditions 2023-2030.

 

The aim is therefore to motivate these young people to see coral reefs not just as tourist sites for Metropolitan French and foreigners, but as the promise of jobs, the guarantee of being able to develop a professional activity without needing to be magnetized by Metropolitan France and its chimeras."