Artedi presented at GCFI in Panama

 

In November, Evan and Chelsea traveled to Panama to present Artedi at the 68th Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute conference.

We were excited to arrive at the conference - it was the 3rd time I (Chelsea) have attended GCFI and I was eager to showcase this exciting project with our colleagues. The GCFI conference is a gathering of fish folks, scientists and organization leaders all working for the greater cause of protecting, monitoring and understanding the fish of the Caribbean/Gulf. It was the perfect venue to introduce Artedi. (Thank you to Alejandro Acosta and Bob Glazer of GCFI for accepting our submission!)

We created a poster that outlined our story, and shared our progress towards completing the app. We were bombarded by interested folks the entire night as we stood by our poster to answer questions and tell the story. It was an exciting moment to see eyes light up as we described what Artedi can do, and how it will change the way we conduct fish surveys and teach fish identification.

 

The following days at the conference were busy as we split our time between presenting in the lecture seminars, listening to lectures and continuing to showcase Artedi outside the conference hall. We teamed up with Experiment and Puerto Rico Sea Grant, who helped us fund our promotional materials and booth space at the conference, so that we could reach a larger audience besides those who attended the poster session.

 

We met so many scientists, leaders and students who are all eager to try and test Artedi in the water! We also heard about grants that may help us continue to support development and the future of the app.

Now, we are finishing up the last few additions to the app and we are excited to launch this month! A big thanks to our developer Keith Charles who has been working around the clock to make our app look sharp, visually appealing, and turn our vision into something that WORKS underwater!! Another big thanks to Puerto Rico Sea Grant for their contribution of fish illustrations and support for our travel to GCFI, and to Daniel Irizarri and Emmanuel Martinez for their help with illustrating the rest of the fish needed for the app. We are beside ourselves with excitement for this project to finally become a reality!

 

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