Oil and Gas meets Aquaculture – ACCEL Crossover

Eight companies have participated in a novel ACCEL Crossover programme to accelerate the introduction of products and services into a new market. This is an integral part of our Oil and Gas meets Aquaculture project.

12 ACCEL programmes have been held since 2011, by GCE Subsea and Bergen Teknologioverføring (BTO). Previous programmes were known as Subsea First Step and Subsea Next Step and approximately 100 companies have participated on these popular courses. Last year the programme was re-named to ACCEL, and since then Accel Energy 2016 and the first ACCEL Crossover programme 2017 have been completed.

ACCEL Crossover

ACCEL Crossover is part of the project Oil and Gas meets Aquaculture, a joint project between GCE Subsea and NCE Seafood Innovation with Deloitte as project manager and funded by Hordaland county.

The programme is led by Caspar M. Lund from BTO and gives an introduction to lean business acceleration techniques with focus on how to introduce an existing or new product or service to a new market; in this case to the fish farming industry. During the course the participants are mentored individually and they also receive the opportunity to speed-date a selection of fish farming companies. The output from the course should be a new business idea to introduce to management in the participants’ respective companies.

Good Way to Boost Introduction to a New Market

One of the participating companies was METAS AS, and Managing Director Kenneth Olsvik found ACCEL Crossover to be very useful. – It gave us a toolbox for how we could enter this new market in a smart and cost effective way, and we were introduced to several important potential clients, he said after the course.

Bergen Group Services also took part, and Asbjørn Grini, Head of Energy and Industry, summed up his experience like this: – The programme boosted our knowledge about agile business acceleration and sales strategies in a condensed and well proven format with professional facilitators. The speed-dating at the end of the programme provided us with some real opportunities for entering this new market. The programme exceeded our expectations and can absolutely be recommended to others.

Furthermore, we spoke with Richard Nilsen, Managing Director of Mekatronikk AS about their experiences with the programme. – This was a very useful introduction to lean business acceleration methods and gave us a valuable insight in new business opportunities within aquaculture. It has already materialised in terms of cooperation agreements with leading actors in the fish farming industry. We can really recommend this unique and well-led programme to other companies, said Richard Nilsen.

The following companies participated in ACCEL Crossover this time:

• Aanderaa Data Instruments
• Bergen Group Services
• Imenco
• Mekatronikk
• METAS
• Sotra Contracting
• SSP
• Unitech Offshore
• Høgskulen på Vestlandet (Observer)