At 19 years old, Daniela Fernandez developed a passion for protecting the world’s oceans from marine pollution, ocean acidification, and habitat destruction. In 2014, she fueled this passion into a new student-organization at Georgetown University, Sustainable Ocean Alliance. In the past 6 years, she has grown this former club into a full-scale, non-profit organization. The Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) seeks to empower young leaders and entrepreneurs, just like Fernandez, to help preserve the health and sustainability of the ocean.
There are about 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic waste in our oceans, and about 100 million marine animals
die each year from plastic waste alone. Fernandez saw a need – climate change and ocean pollution – and sought to create change. Starting a non-profit organization was not easy, but Fernandez and her team have raised over $3,000,000 in funding.
Fernandez created two main programs of SOA to carry out her original mission. The first is the Ocean Leadership Program, which gives young leaders a platform to take meaningful ocean-related action. This program allows individuals from all over the world to connect and work on unique projects and business ideas to help protect our oceans. For instance, some young leaders and entrepreneurs have hosted community-centered workshops, ocean hackathons, and advocacy campaigns.
Another innovative program of SOA is the Ocean Solutions Accelerator. The program comes alongside ocean-tech startups to grow and support their ideas. Each entrepreneur is granted $25,000 and access to an 8-week leadership and development program with SOA. These entrepreneurs receive unique guidance from investors, marine biologists, and experts in the field to grow their ideas into sustainable change.
Daniela Fernandez is truly inspiring. Not only has she founded a non-profit social enterprise, but she has also inspired other young entrepreneurs to protect our oceans. Through her programs, she has helped grow many new ocean-relief organizations. Because of all of her diligent work, she was named the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur. She truly is a change-maker and leader, and she will surely continue to make a positive impact in the world.
What impresses me about Daniela Fernandez is that she is doing more than just cleaning the ocean. She is getting other people thoroughly invested in saving the ocean and allowing them to think of ways to help beyond just basic things. Now, many people can create their own programs and continue the fight for years to come.
The work that Daniela Fernandez has done is incredible. Not only is she extremely young to be starting a venture this big bet she is also making a large impact. It is great to see her getting others involved and educating people on the issue. Her leadership program sounds like a great way to get others involved. She is going to do great things and make a difference which is so great to see in the world we live in nowadays.
Work like this is incredible! I love seeing people look at problems surrounding the beautiful earth that we live on and put their best foot forward in terms of solving them. It is truly impressive that at such a young age she has found success on such a global scale, and it’s wonderful that she is getting more and more people invested in saving our oceans!