Leire Fernández Prieto, Director of Projects for RALEY Estudios Costeros, a consultancy firm based in the Canary Islands that specialises in oceanography and coastal management, and Amanda Alonso Lorenzo, Training Co-ordinator for HEXIA, a company specialising in online training management, gave a talk entitled “Marine Renewable Energy: challenges, opportunities and specialised training” on Thursday 23 June in the Conference Room of the Oceanic Platform of the Canary Islands in Taliarte. The talk was organized in the scope of the PLOCAN Marine and Maritime Demonstration Center and contributed to the dissemination and training in marine renewable energy as an emerging area with many current and future opportunities to revive the economy and generate employment at the same time as encouraging greater and better use of marine environmental resources. In addition, from this year, this training is now certified by the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Leire Fernández Prieto holds a degree in Marine Sciences, and has completed postgraduate courses in Port and Coastal Engineering, and Occupational Risks. She is currently a founding partner and Director of Projects and the Environment for RALEY Estudios Costeros, S.C.P. To date, her work has consisted of providing technical assistance for the writing of maritime work related projects, coastal management projects, studies into marine renewable energy and studies into fisheries and marine reserves, as well as being a speaker for courses, postgraduate courses and Masters degree courses in the field of oceanography and coastal management at public institutions including the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of La Laguna.

Amanda Alonso Lorenzo is a technical engineer in telecommunications and industrial electronics and is a founding partner of HEXIA. She has co-ordinated a large number of courses in the field of online training, making the technical management of tele-education platforms, academic management and teaching assessment available to teachers and tutoring available to students for courses ranging from short specialised courses to longer training programmes such as postgraduate courses. Courses currently in progress cover marine renewable energy, reliability, maintainability and risk engineering in industry.