Team name: OCTET-JOCTOFLOAT~The possibilities of microalgae~

1. Social backgrounds & business incentives
The ever increasing IUU fishing activity is imposing a significant impact on the marine life habitat and its’biodiversity. Statistics show that the available aquatic resources halved within the past 30 years. Hence, thesupply of marine products in the near future are at risk, while the demand demonstrates an increasing trend.
Therefore, we consider reducing IUU fishing activity to secure the future marine product supply and to conserve
the marine biodiversity as our incentive of business. However, a direct intervention to combat IUU fishing is
unrealistic due to its’ political nature as an issue. Given the condition, we intend to introduce a more sustainable,
efficient method of producing marine products utilizing microalgae and wastewater, which indirectly reduces IUU
fishing by competing with lower prices, ultimately decreasing the demand of IUU products to exile IUU fishers
from the market.
Microalgae is a growing field of study in many universities, and is expected to contribute to a clean environment,
and a sustainable society by utilizing its' practicality.

2. Description of the product
The structure shown in the diagram is one unit of the “OCTOFLOAT”, that regulates the aquaculture process of
producing our marine products.
The floating structure consists of 4 octagonal loops, connected to acore both composed of PLA, a light, inexpensive, and biodegradable
plastic. The octagonal loops accommodates and cultivates themicroalgae. The core containing the SBC unit is equipped with thelatest AI Watson, which regulates the industrial wastewater
distribution to the octagonal loops from nearby industrial facilities,
and the detection of excess microalgae and its’ discharge, as theynaturally expand their population over time. To supply CO2 and toprevent the microalgae from suffocating by oxygen, a portion of theoctagonal loop is composed of new polyethylene which intakes CO2,releases oxygen while insulating water.
The microalgae, specifically a species named Chlorella Vulgaris(3)accommodated in the octagonal loops continuously releases oxygen
and purifies the wastewater supplied as it grows. The purified water isreleased to the surroundings, improving the environment to enable
other species to inhabit the area and eventually develop asustainable ecosystem. The released excess microalgae provides arich source of basic nutrients for the new species, to further foster theprocess.
The new species are our low cost products to compete against IUU products and ultimately reduce its’ demand,as the OCTOFLOAT is self-sustainable. The reason being that sunlight, CO2 and water are the conditions forthe cultivation of microalgae, and because the process is regulated by an AI, meaning human labor costs andmaintenance costs can be minimized.
The expected yield is such that the ecosystem is maintained, therefore the OCTOFLOAT reduces IUU bycompeting with low costs, as well as achieving the goal of conserving biodiversity.

3. Marketing strategiesa) Analysis, target
China is said to be the main contributors of IUU fishing, and in fact, Japan is the biggest importer of IUU
products from China. 22% of Chinese exports of marine products were sent to Japan in 2012, indicating thesignificance of Japan as a major importer of Chinese IUU products. In addition, squid accounts for the highest
proportion of Chinese IUU products. It is estimated that Japan imported about 30,000 tons of squid resulting
from IUU fishing in China. With this, we intend to concentrate our sales and production under the system ofOCTOFLOAT on squid, considering Japanese marine product suppliers as our target customer. The additional
reason being that squid can be shipped within only 3 months with low costs for breeding. This will contribute tocombating IUU fishing profits of the main contributors, the Chinese. We specifically aim to reduce about 40
percent of Japanese imports of Chinese IUU products so that our business can grow exponentially in the shortrun.
b) Marketing strategies
i. Manufacturing methodWe intend to base the activities of the OCTOFLOAT in the Philippines given the below facts.
• Fish account for half of the animal protein source for Filipinos• Fishermen’s average annual wages in the Philippines are half of that in the United States (1300USD)• The main objective of fishing in the Philippines is for household consumption, it is not yet developed as abusiness. Therefore new businesses can easily enter the market• Labour and facilities for processing is available• Japan is the number one trade partner for the Philippines, and as 55% of Japan’s imports on squid from
China are a product of IUU fishing, exporting marine products from the Philippines to Japan will directly
confront the IUU product supply.
• The government of the Philippines is committed to achieving sustainability of fisheries• The Philippines' probable productivity may well be 125,000t
ii. Marketability
The strengths of our marine products are low prices due to the minimized costs of production, and being asustainable method of production. This is possible because of the mechanisms of the OCTOFLOAT. It isregulated digitally and the cultivation of microalgae is self-sustainable given the fact that the conditions including
sunlight, CO2 and water are supplied either from the surroundings or the OCTOFLOAT itself. Therefore, thecosts are minimized to the costs of human labour during the process of catching. Specifically, we can offer ourmarine products (squid) with half the price of current IUU prices (2500 USD per ton), ensuring the effectivenessof our business in competing against IUU products.
Furthermore, the squid market is one of the largest markets of marine products in Japan, therefore we canexpect high profits by exporting our products to Japan. This ensures a potential expansion of our business to a
global scale and to other marine products, to further contribute to ending IUU fishing and to achieve sustainablefisheries as well as marine biodiversity.
iii. Sales promotion method
In order to put our products in an advantage against IUU products, we intend to make our products and ourmethods of production better known through our website and SNS, by providing statistics as well as updates
based on yields, and the specifics of our method of production and how it contributes to reducing IUU fishing.
We will especially promote low costs which will be appealing to the target marine product suppliers of Japan,and potentially around the world.

4. Financial plan
-We expect some natural disasters
during the course of a year, however
can be assumed to be negligible tothe effects on our profits.
-We expect to be able to pay back allof our loan in the second year due toour expanding profits.
-We expect the demand for ourservice to increase throughout thenation, leading to more installment ofour product.
-We assumed our salaries for ouremployees and rent to be the same
regardless of where the system isinstalled.

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chromeextension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/htt
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