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Ocean Community Nordic Chapter
Strengthening collaboration and innovation across the Nordic Blue Ecosystem
Ocean Community Nordic is the Nordic chapter of Ocean Community, anchored in Sweden to strengthen collaboration, knowledge exchange, and innovation across the Nordic ocean ecosystem.
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Building on Ocean Community’s international platform and reputation, the Nordic chapter serves as a neutral coordination point for Nordic ocean innovation actors, including clusters, companies, researchers, and ecosystem organisations. Its focus is to enable Nordic cooperation around shared ocean challenges while supporting the development and scaling of sustainable solutions.
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The foundation remains the same - founders, startups and blue companies with our shared mission to ignite and develop regenerative ocean positive solutions that transform businesses and our global economy.
Why the Nordics?
The Nordic region is a globally recognised innovation engine, characterised by strong public–private collaboration, advanced research environments, trusted institutions, and a long tradition of turning complex challenges into scalable solutions. In the ocean domain, the Nordics combine deep industrial expertise, digital capability, and sustainability leadership, making the region uniquely positioned to develop, test, and scale ocean solutions with global relevance.
While regions such as Portugal represent a powerful ocean engine, rooted in geography, culture, and daily interaction with the sea, the Nordics complement this with an innovation-driven capacity to transform ocean knowledge into robust technologies, business models, and system-level impact.
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WHAT OCEAN COMMUNITY NORDICS DOES
The Ocean Community Nordic chapter operates on the global foundation and the same programmes, principles, and innovation frameworks, with regional focus, and global reach.
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Connects Nordic innovators, founders, startups, academia, and blue industry actors to the global Ocean Community network.
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Facilitates knowledge exchange and collaboration across the Nordic region, aligned with Ocean Community’s international programmes.
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Enables Nordic participation in Ocean Community’s global ocean innovation initiatives, challenges, and partnerships.
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Delivers Ocean Community’s core programmes — OC CONNECT, OC LEARN, and OC INNOVATE - locally, while contributing to shared international impact.
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Meet the Team
CECILIA HJERTZELL
Chair of the Board, Nordics
Cecilia Hjertzell brings broad experience from serial entrepreneurship, board roles, and leadership positions in global companies across IT, retail, data centers, and telecom, with sustainability as a consistent thread. With a strategic and execution-driven approach, she helps organizations translate sustainability into resilient, value-creating business.
Cecilia is a mentor within Women on Board, a Business Advisor in the Aspire Balkans Women Entrepreneurship Accelerator Program, and a coach to innovative startups. She is also a sought-after speaker on how EU regulation and climate reporting can enable sustainable business development.
As Chairwoman of Ocean Community Nordic, she is committed to connecting people, ideas, and partners to accelerate ocean-positive innovation across the region.
Raised in a Swedish archipelago town, Cecilia has a deep personal connection to the sea. She is a certified diver and passionate sport fisher, experiences that continue to shape her commitment to ocean preservation and regenerative ocean solutions.
Susanne Wedin-Schildt
Treasurer, Nordics
As Founder and President of Ocean Community, Susanne Wedin Schildt brings extensive experience leading teams and operations across diverse markets and industries. Her career spans large enterprises and top global management consulting firms, where she has served as a trusted advisor to CxOs on complex strategic and transformation initiatives. She is deeply focused on harnessing IT and innovation to enable sustainable, scalable, and regenerative business models.
Susanne serves on multiple business, advisory, and jury boards within the green and blue sectors.
In 2020, she relocated from Sweden to Portugal to pursue her long-standing commitment to ocean protection and sustainable use. A sailor by passion, she also enjoys surfing and hiking along the Portuguese Silver Coast. Beyond her professional work, Susanne is a dedicated environmental advocate, animal lover, and champion of plant-based living, driven by a commitment to a sustainable future for all.
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Rimmie Duraisamy
Secretary, Nordics
Rimmie comes from the western coast of India and has been living in Sweden since 2015.
She has a background in Mechanical engineering and has experience from working in the automotive industry. Rimmie currently serves as the Ocean Community Innovate Program Director, and she is also pursuing her PhD in the field of Wave Energy Harvesting systems at KTH, Stockholm. Through her work, she aims at solving the challenges involved in the design and development of ocean energy harvesting. Rimmie can’t resist the charm of the Scandinavian outdoors, enjoys long hikes and loves to be around animals. Having recently taken diving lessons, she is looking forward to true blue underwater adventures.
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