Sierra Leone project wins public vote at the OceanLove Innovation Awards 2026

Sierra Leone Telegraph: 5 November 2026:

The third edition of the OceanLove Innovation Awards Ceremony took place on 11 October 2026 at AltaSea, Port of Los Angeles, California. It was an afternoon by the ocean, open to all ages, where the winners across the three award categories — The Blue Circle, Living Sea, and WaveMakers — were announced and celebrated.

In addition to the projects recognised by a panel of globally acclaimed judges, the OceanLove Innovation Awards 2026 also featured a public vote, giving audiences the opportunity to support their favourite projects.

The project “Coastal Watch Schools: Youth Drones for Sierra Leone’s Vanishing Shores,” led by applicant Abu Bakarr Bangura from Sierra Leone, was selected by public vote as one of the winners of the WaveMakers Award, one of three award categories presented at the OceanLove Innovation Awards 2026.

The public vote was open to both attendees at the ceremony and an international audience watching the event via livestream on YouTube, which reached nearly 4,000 viewers.

We are also very happy with the work of our Country Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Alimatu Tity George, who helped spread the word about the call for applications across the country.

The project places Sierra Leone on the global map for ocean conservation.

OceanLove Awards Ceremony

The programme included a screening of Haagua, an Indigenous surf film by Native Like Water, as well as an exhibition fair featuring 11 organisations and initiatives, where visitors could meet innovators, student organisations and NGOs advancing ocean conservation, education and community action.

The exhibitors were: CSULB Science Learning Center, UCLA, Paddle Out Plastic, 7 Seas Collective, Clean Earth Rovers, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Marine Mammal Care Center, Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, Native Like Water, Project Neptune, and Upwell Art Lab.

The event also marked a strengthening of OceanLove’s collaboration in the United States, particularly in the Los Angeles region. Falana Monroe joined OceanLove as a US Ambassador, helping to strengthen community engagement and promote the stories of the inspiring people and projects working towards a healthier ocean.

Within our three different award categories each winning idea, selected by a panel of judges, receives** USD 10,000 each in seed funding, a year of expert coaching, and global media exposure**. Winners also join OceanLove as Laureate Ambassadors for future editions, and many stay involved long after their own year. The awards are not a one-off cheque. Each edition leaves behind people who join the movement and an idea that arrives on its own leaves with a community around it.

A New Record of Applicants

Between 1 April and 31 August 2026, the volunteer-run non-profit OceanLove invited anyone, anywhere, to submit an innovative idea or early stage grassroots project that could improve the protection of the ocean. The response was the largest in the award’s history: 487 applications from 91 countries. Half of them came from Africa, and 73% from the Global South as a whole. No ocean innovation award reaches further into the communities most affected by the three main threats for the ocean: climate change, overfishing and pollution.

That is almost 90% more than 2025 and nearly six times the number received in 2024 — growth that confirms the OceanLove Innovation Awards as the world’s largest and most inclusive ocean innovation award by number of applications and countries involved. From those 487 ideas, 30 were selected for an intensive online bootcamp with expert coaches.

“When we started, people asked whether there were really enough ocean ideas out there to fill an award. This year we read 487 of them, from 91 countries. The ideas were never the scarce thing — the platform was.” — Ilco van der Linde, Founder, OceanLove

Beyond the Awards

OceanLove is currently developing its Impact Report, The Heartbeat of Change, based on common challenges and themes emerging from this year’s applications. The report identifies 11 themes and 43 subcategories, ranging from ocean literacy and ecosystem restoration to pollution, climate, technology and the blue economy. It highlights the grassroots people and communities behind these ideas — what OceanLove calls a “coalition of the willing”.

As a next step, OceanLove aims to connect projects within the themes in order to exchange knowledge, best practices, frameworks and technology, helping to scale these innovative ideas and accelerate their impact. The goal is to bring them into action: connect, inspire, share and innovate.

Assessed by a panel of globally acclaimed judges.

Every application was read by a panel of internationally recognised scientists, campaigners and social entrepreneurs, all volunteering their time and expertise. They assess each idea on originality, impact, reach and feasibility, alongside diversity, community upliftment and sustainability.

The 2026 panel comprises Sian Owen (Canada), Executive Director of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition; Prof. Alexander Turra (Brazil), Head of the UNESCO Chair for Ocean Sustainability at the University of São Paulo; Laura Guimarães (Portugal), Coordinator of the UNESCO Chair Ocean Expert at the University of Porto; Maria Murcia Diaz (Spain), marine biologist and oceanographer; Khadija Stewart (Trinidad and Tobago), Founder of EcoVybz and EcoSeas Caribbean; Mohamed Kamal (Egypt), Director of the Greenish Foundation; and Saad Abid (Morocco), Founder of the Bahri Association and winner of the first OceanLove Innovation Awards in 2024.

Read more about each judge at oceanloveawards.com/judges.

**Meet the Sierra Leone Project Chosen by Public Vote
**
Category: THE WAVEMAKERS AWARD: Educators, youth and movements spreading awareness and hope, with methods that push change beyond the lesson plan.

Project: Coastal Watch Schools: Youth Drones for Sierra Leone’s Vanishing Shores

**Applicant: **Abu Bakarr Bangura **| Sierra Leone
**

**The problem: **Sierra Leone’s 506km Atlantic coastline is eroding under sea-level rise, storm surge, sand mining and mangrove clearance. On Plantain Island, homes, farmland and heritage sites have already been lost and residents have relocated. But shoreline change is typically documented only after severe damage, leaving authorities without the comparable maps needed to enforce sand-mining restrictions, target mangrove restoration or plan relocation.

**The solution: **A supervised youth citizen-science network across ten coastal secondary schools. Each school nominates ten students — half of them girls — and two teachers, trained in coastal processes, drone safety, basic GIS and evidence-based advocacy. Under licensed adult pilots and civil aviation approval, teams fly the same fixed route every three months and after major storms. A central team verifies every dataset before shoreline movement is calculated. Each quarter, students present verified maps to residents, councils and disaster-management officials with one specific request attached.

**Why it’s innovative: **It closes two gaps at once — between visible damage and credible evidence, and between evidence and action. As the applicant puts it, drones do not stop erosion; decisions do. The twelve-month pilot targets 40 repeat surveys and ten formal shoreline evidence briefs.

About OceanLove

OceanLove was launched in 2021 by Dutch social entrepreneur and Divemaster Ilco van der Linde and is co-founded by Egyptian freediver Raghda Ezzeldin. It is a non-profit initiative run entirely by volunteers, under the slogan “Because you protect what you love.”

The awards are deliberately built for people the innovation world usually misses: they are open to anyone, anywhere, at the idea stage, regardless of background, institution or wealth. That design is why OceanLove involves hundreds of early stage grassroots initiatives and why a solo diver in Tasmania and a village fisheries collective in Kenya compete on the same terms.

OceanLove’s reach is carried by 30 Country Ambassadors representing 30 countries, who take the call for applications into their own languages, networks and communities.

Leading as Global OceanLove Ambassadors are:

• Sylvia Earle

  , world-renowned marine biologist, oceanographer and founder of Mission Blue

• Paul Polman

  , business leader, former CEO of Unilever, investor and philanthropist, advocate for responsible business and the UN Sustainable Development Goals

• Tatiana Mendes

  , French–Cape Verdean–American athlete and freediver, holder of multiple national records, 2024 African Female Vice Champion and Sea Shepherd diver

As Dr. Sylvia Earle puts it: “People need to participate as if their lives depend on it — because they do.”

The OceanLove Innovation Awards are endorsed by the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021–2030) and aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 14 (Life Below Water). OceanLove collaborates with a growing network of international partners and supporters, including AltaSea, Mission Blue and DOER Marine (USA), with AltaSea hosting this year’s ceremony; the Marine Biological Association (UK); ECHT Community, BrightVibes, The Optimist and Blyde (Netherlands); AfriLabs (Africa); KMT House (Egypt); Sea Sense (Tanzania); Perempuan Indonesia Maju (Indonesia); Oceanovation (global); and the MasterPeace network, active in more than 45 countries. The Awards are funded by Stichting Nieuwe Waarde and the OOF Foundation