OnDeck is bringing a new age of artificial intelligence (AI) to fisheries monitoring. Electronic monitoring (EM) is an especially challenging domain for AI, and the AI techniques used in the EM industry have been lagging far behind the global frontier. This has left EM programs with unmet promises, failing programs, and missed potential.
Our mission is simple: bring the level of software innovation present in other industries and make it accessible and useful to fisheries.
Achieving this requires a new level of talent, funding, product design, and collaboration. This also requires a new type of company structure – while critical for other roles in the EM community, NGOs, consulting companies, or universities are not well suited to provide and maintain AI products for long-term use. In the rapidly changing world of AI, an agile software startup solely focused on image processing pipelines for EM is the only way to bring these key components together and unlock real video review progress for the industry. This is why we created OnDeck.
Today, OnDeck is 2.5 years old. We have raised over $2 million in direct funding, attracted the top AI talent from Cambridge, the European Space Agency and more, and deployed automated video review tools on three continents and counting.
Scaling EM Innovation & Collaboration
Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, OnDeck delivers software that helps monitoring organizations and individuals get what they need out of their video. We have deployed novel AI products in the United States, Costa Rica, and Canada through partnerships with governments, monitoring companies, NGOs, commercial fishers and Indigenous communities. OnDeck has been supported by National Geographic, The Environmental Defense Fund, The Ocean Impact Organization, Schmidt Marine Technology Partners, the Government of Canada, and many more.
$3.5M AI for Scalable Fisheries Monitoring Project
OnDeck is leading the $3.5 million AI for Scalable Fisheries Monitoring Project to modernize EM in fisheries management across Canada and internationally. With $1.5 million in direct funding and $2 million in matching funding, this project is driving key components of building enterprise-grade software systems, including data security and compliance across international borders. Along with partners Teem Fish Monitoring Inc., Ha’oom Fisheries Society, and Ocean Wise and more, OnDeck is pioneering a data-driven approach to sustainable fisheries management that supports regulatory compliance and resource conservation worldwide.
Tool Highlight: Introducing Automatic Video Search
OnDeck is pioneering video search for fisheries. This lets you instantly find specific events and gather statistics from terabytes of footage. This tool works on data from any vessel or gear type, without needing additional training data, sensors, or other algorithms. Instantly search through entire fishing trips worth of data for 100% review capabilities. Customizable searches give users the freedom to find specialized elements instantly, saving time and resources.
For example, instantly find all discard or catch events in hundreds of hours of fishing footage. Curious about the crew dumping trash overboard? Or transhipment? Simply type your question into the search bar and OnDeck will find the answers for you in minutes.
Try it out yourself! You can try the demo of our video search tool here: https://video-query.ondeck.fish/query
If you have any questions or would like to try video search with some of your own footage, please email us and we will be happy to set that up for you.
The Team Behind OnDeck Fisheries AI
Alexander Dungate, Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder. Alexander brings together research and developments from software to ocean science. He is a National Geographic Explorer, Environmental Defense Fund Fellow in Leadership for Climate-Resilient Fisheries, and a Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) Young Ocean Leader. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Biology from the University of British Columbia.
Sepand Dyanatkar, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder. Sepand has led research and development of novel AI tools at the world’s leading companies, including the European Space Agency and Amazon. He holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science and Physics from the University of British Columbia, and a Masters in machine learning research from the University of Cambridge.
OnDeck also receives privileged guidance from advisors including Dr. Rashid Sumaila, Dr. Amanda Vincent, and Dr. Daniel Pauly — all global leaders in fisheries and conservation. Their insights guide OnDeck’s mission to create scalable, effective, and accessible solutions for EM.See our website for the full team: ondeck.fish/about
Get in Touch
We are just getting started. In the next 6 months you are going to see announcements from our team that will change how visual monitoring is done around the world.
Do you have any video or imagery you need automatically processed? We’d love to hear about your hardest challenges to see how we can help, and potentially let you in on early access to our upcoming tools.
Follow us on LinkedIn or our website, and reach out to info@ondeck-ai.com.
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Industry Focus is an ongoing series of informational articles profiling companies involved in electronic monitoring and other fishtech pursuits. To include your company, please drop us a line at info@em4.fish.
