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Collaboration, Technology, and the Blue Economy: Interview with Marilou Suc, Blue Connection

Digital tools are changing how the blue economy monitors, manages and protects the ocean, but technology only makes a difference when it solves a real problem and is within reach of the people expected to use it. Marilou Suc, founder of Blue Connection and host of the podcast BlueTech Around the World, has built her career on connecting the start-ups, companies, researchers and public actors who make that possible.

From fishing to marine tourism: Finn van der Aar on skills, marine tourism and pescaturismo

At the Bluedots Living Lab in Milan, Finn van der Aar presented an idea still in development: helping small-scale fishers diversify into sustainable marine wildlife tourism. Her starting point is that fishers already hold much of what the work requires, from knowledge of local waters and weather to seamanship, maritime heritage and the boats themselves. In this piece, she reflects on how those transferable skills could open new sources of income for Ireland’s inshore fishers, and on what she learned from the Italian tradition of pescaturismo.

Building the Right to Stay: Why Social Economy Matters for Rural Europe

For many rural communities across Europe, this is becoming one of the defining questions of the coming years. The decision to stay is shaped by whether a place can offer the conditions for a viable and fulfilling future: decent and meaningful work, affordable housing, access to essential services, opportunities to build a livelihood or start a business, a sense of belonging and participation, and confidence that future generations can continue to thrive there.  

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