Resilience Initiative Coastal Education

I have the honor of serving as the first Director of Conservation for the SC Aquarium and Co-Founder of the Amazon Reforestation Project. Prior to the Amazon Reforestation Project, I worked as the Director of Education for the Georgia Aquarium, Inc. I have also held appointments as a Strategy Management Consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton. I completed my B.S. in Marine Biology and Chemistry from Savannah State University (HBCU) and the P.R.E.P. program at Yale University concentrating in physiology cellular molecular genetics, and then completed a program of study from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government in addition to completing a Master’s of Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology. I am also the founder of the GA Green Economy Summit and the Resilience Initiative Coastal Education (R.I.C.E.) which has worked to promote green economy growth and resilience strategic planning in the state of GA and SC.

The Resilience Initiative Coastal Education (R.I.C.E.) is a scalable model for community resilience outreach and action that facilitates engagement across socioeconomic strata and aids the collaborative development of coordinated coastal resilience strategies along the South Atlantic Bight. Projected biosphere climate perturbations pose a significant threat to human health and safety, commerce, culture, and stability of ecosystem services on a local level, particularly in the South Carolina Lowcountry. At notable risk are socially vulnerable communities and the cultural heritage of the Gullah Geechee people. R.I.C.E. solution-oriented collaborative approach leverages innovative technologies and novel methods to engage citizens inclusive of environmental justice principles in locally-appropriate resilience-building actions. Advanced technological tools including the SeaRise Beta web application with integrated citizen science functionality generate community literacy on the topics of Climate Change and sea level rise and efficiently convert knowledge to action to help communities actualize on-the-ground mitigation strategies in partnership with municipal leaders.

It's estimated that sea level could rise more than 2 meters by 2100. According to the IPCC if this were to occur we could see 187 million people displaced globally. In a place that is called the "Lowcountry", which runs from Myrtle Beach (SC) to Savannah (GA), any increase in water level would have far reaching impacts. This region is home to over 2 million people many living at or beneath the poverty line. This region is also one of the top vacation and tourist destinations in the world, where over 30 million guests visit this region annually. In addition to the above, this corridor has been hit with five straight years of major storm activity creating billions of dollars in damages. One of the critical issues that has to be better understood in this region is the link between Climate Change, sea level rise, and increased storm/hurricane strength potential. In a region that is very conservative politically often these above topics are avoided or not fully factored into regional and municipal planning efforts. The goal of the Resilience Initiative Coastal Education is to assist this region with mitigating the above risks by launching a new technology decision support platform.

R.I.C.E. works to empower communities such as the Gullah Geechee that are typically left out of conversations around Climate Change and hazard mitigation. This is becoming increasingly critical, as the low-lying coastal communities of South Carolina are facing imminent sea level rise in the coming years, and currently suffer persistent flooding due to rising water levels. It is anticipated that Charleston (SC), could be experiencing 180 days of tidal flooding per year without rain by 2045 according to NOAA. R.I.C.E. has included more than 20 town halls, a documentary film (The Sea Change SCETV/NETV documentary was the recipient of the 2018 Telly Award with over 81 million viewers nationally), and a data visualization tool. R.I.C.E. also received a federal grant in summer 2019 to partner with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, College of William & Mary, to develop a sophisticated 3D Inundation Supercomputer Modelling Tool that will help predict and mitigate the risks of future floods and storm surges. We want to empower communities to hold the “flame of knowledge.” And once they are empowered, they can serve as their own best advocates, not only to local/regional decision makers but also those working on state/national level policies.

Through R.I.C.E. we have engaged many communities in the Lowcountry. One specific community I would like to highlight would be the West Ashley/Maryville community located in Charleston, SC. This community was home to the first African-American township in SC prior to its charter being revoked. We were invited into this community because of a large scale salt marsh die-off that was underway. There were many members in this community who believed that the large scale salt marsh die-off was being caused by illegal dumping. The salt marsh ecosystem is not only a critical habitat serving as the nursery for the majority of the Atlantic pelagic fish species but also provides a critical buffer to reduce flood risks for this community. Working with the community members we devised a plan to help them capture data using our citizen science platform to help document what was unfolding. We then used the citizen science information to engage some of the top scientists in the nation. As a result we were able to partner with the SC Department of Natural Resources and a grant was received to replant over 1/2 acre of salt marsh in this community. Funding was also received for additional research.

R.I.C.E. is aligned with all of the Elevate Prize selection dimensions. It involves meeting the needs of those who are often left behind specifically as it relates to Climate Change risk mitigation by changing peoples attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.

When I was hired by the South Carolina Aquarium to serve as the first Director of Conservation (June/2015); I wanted to establish an initiative to provide outreach to under-served communities on topics related to Climate Change risk mitigation. The place where the South Carolina Aquarium is located in Charleston (SC) is called Gadsden Wharf. Gadsden Wharf served as the largest point of West African slave importation in the U.S. before the Civil War. I wanted to come up with a name that would honor this history and community but also establish an overarching framework for a new outreach initiative. From Georgetown (SC) to Savannah (GA) the Lowcountry was reshaped by the West African to make this region one of the rice production epicenters of the world. The types of slaves imported into this region were chosen carefully for their acumen in relation to being able to support rice cultivation in the region. The descendants of the West African slaves who still live in this region are called Gullah Geechee. In honor of this history and culture I launched the Resilience Initiative Coastal Education (R.I.C.E.). Rice production at its core was large scale water/land engineering that reshaped coastal SC & GA. 

My mother's maiden name was Sandral Lee Smalls. The "Smalls" family name has deep roots in SC where my mother's family is from. My father's name is Albert A. George Sr., the "George" family has deep roots in Savannah, GA and Liberty County. I have West African ancestry and blood line ties to this region on both sides of my family. I am a Gullah Geechee Marine Biologist who has had a passion for Climate Change risk mitigation since 2000 when I was first introduced to the topic at the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government during the Spring Exercise. In short, I am using my knowledge and ability to help fight for what is considered my home. 

I am a native of this region who has been trained as a science, strategy, and policy analysis Climate Change risk mitigation subject matter expert. I am able to combine my knowledge of community organizing with my knowledge of the science and technology needed to proactively engage communities in a meaningful way leading to a knowledge to action inflection point. 

When R.I.C.E. was started I was advised by several prominent environmental groups that the desired path of activation was not promising to pursue and was not able to receive any significant funding at first. I decided that with or without significant funding that this initiative was important to launch and was committed to providing the needed sweat equity to get R.I.C.E. out of the gate. Once we were out of the gate working directly to engage at risk communities, we were able to meet like minded groups and individuals who were willing to support this effort at a grass roots level. Once we established momentum at the grass roots level we were able to establish partnerships with Prof. David Rivers (Director) of the Medical University of South Carolina Public Information and Community Outreach (PICO), U.S. Department of Energy, South Carolina Education TV, Allen University, ROK Technologies, MDI Biological Laboratory, SCDNR, GATECH, USC and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science of William & Mary. These partnerships came as a result of being able to demonstrate results despite the initial lack of resources. We also partnered with artist Sonja Evans to paint a signature piece for R.I.C.E. called 'American Gullah' (https://www.sonjagriffinevans.com/american-gullah.html).

My mother was the first person on either side of my family to receive a college education. Despite my mother's early death when I was a teenager, I drew inspiration from her example to become the first male in my family to graduate from college. Everything I have achieved throughout my life has been a function of faith, hard work, and ingenuity. After my mother's death, I was raised by my grandmother in Savannah, GA. During my up bringing in Savannah (GA) at one point Savannah (GA) was listed as the murder capital of the U.S.; having a very high poverty rate between 25-30%. Despite all of these potential obstacles, I have been able to work to turn challenges into opportunity. I have also been fearless when it comes to working to overcome societal barriers to achieve both academic and professional success. When I was not provided access to a given field or area of interest I worked to create my own conduits to gain access and to pursue areas of passion and deep meaning. This led me to serve as the founder of the Georgia Green Economy Summit and to serve as the Co-Founder of the Amazon Reforestation Project. 

I launched R.I.C.E. as a function of my role serving as the first Director of Conservation for the South Carolina Aquarium. R.I.C.E. has established a collaborative model that includes non-profit, private, and public sector institutional partners.

Through R.I.C.E. we bring together grass roots community organizing and science with high-tech tool development and deployment to promote community knowledge capacity building in relation to Climate Change risk mitigation. 

R.I.C.E. theory of change consists five elements in alignment with the utilization of the developed community science data acquisition and decision support technology platform of the SeaRise Viewer, Citizen Science App, and the VIMS 3D Inundation Supercomputer Models. 1.) You must first develop a relationship of trust with the targeted communities. Without this relationship of trust being established you will not be able to meaningfully engage this community. 2.) Once trust is established you must then work to understand the needs of the community. This affords them the opportunity to share deeply providing you with critical insights not only into a potential problem but also the prevailing political and societal forces that are in play in a given community. 3.) Once you understand the needs of the community you can then develop a customized approach to educate the community stakeholders about their identified problem(s). 4.) Once you create your customized educational curriculum you can then move forward with community knowledge capacity building. 5.) Once you have completed step four you are now ready to provide training for the community members on how to use scientific data to inform decision making at the local level. All of the above steps constitute the R.I.C.E. knowledge to action framework and our theory of change. The West Ashley/Maryville community example provided earlier in application is a strong example of this in action leading to tangible results in promoting community and regional resilience strategy development and implementation.

We are currently serving over 12,000 people. In the next year we will serve over 300,000 people. In five years we will serve over 2,000,000 people. 

Our goal is to help establish a comprehensive resiliency strategy for the South Atlantic Bight Coastal Corridor. This region is home to over two million people year around but also has over 20 million visitors during the summer which is peak season for hurricane activity. Our goal is to help catalyze a comprehensive resiliency strategy for this region that will mitigate future Climate Change risks for those who live in and visit this region. This above goal will be achieved by further deploying the R.I.C.E. state of the art decision support technology and citizen science education platform. Also as part of the above articulated goal we would like to design/build the first green modular resilient food pantry in SC (Partner Sandalwood Community Food Pantry) able to withstand a category 5 hurricane in the historic Mitchelville Gullah Geechee community on Hilton Head Island, SC. We would like to demonstrate that affordable resilient structures could be constructed to replace inferior conventional construction and the current mobile homes which many in the rural south live in. Through the above demonstration project we would like to highlight the need to develop more robust and comprehensive resilient strategies for those who represent the rural poor. We have already worked with a world class team to design the above structure all we need now is the funding to execute the above demonstration project. This above example represents another opportunity that could benefit from a partnership with the Elevate Prize Foundation and the MIT Solve community. 

Not having the needed resources to scale R.I.C.E. is of chief concern. Due to COVID-19 Pandemic and the mandatory shut down of most of the global economy; the South Carolina Aquarium and our region has been placed in a challenging financial position.

By pursuing grant funding we will be able to mitigate some of the above barriers. Last fall R.I.C.E. received funding from the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and this year we received a grant award from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF). We have also submitted a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with the MDI Biological Laboratory. 

R.I.C.E. current partners include the Sandalwood Community Food Pantry (SCFP), Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) of William & Mary, Georgia Institute of Technology (GATECH), University of South Carolina (USC), SC Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR), Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (GGCHC), ROK Technologies, and MDI Biological Laboratory. We are working with VIMS to develop 3D Inundation Supercomputer Modeling for our region. We are working with GATECH, USC, and SCDNR in conjunction with the West Ashley/Maryville community that was recently awarded the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant for salt marsh restoration. We are working with ROK Technologies and MDI Biological Laboratory to further enhance SeaRise viewer application and citizen science education platform. We are working with the GGCHC to extend our reach in the Gullah Geechee Corridor communities. We are partnering with the SCFP to design/build the first resilient green modular food pantry demonstration project able to withstand a category 5 hurricane in South Carolina on Hilton Head Island in the historic Mitchelville Gullah Geechee community.

We are currently developing 3D Supercomputer Inundation Models for the corridor in between Charleston (SC) and Savannah (GA). In the Charleston Tri-County area alone there are over $50 billion dollars of at risk GDP and property. Through this innovative supercomputer modeling tool we will be able to model future scenarios with block level resolution in an effort to proactively establish plans to not only mitigate potential loss of life but also mitigate the long term impacts to the regional economy. Given the low population density found in this region many municipalities and communities do not have access to the needed fiscal and data resources to develop comprehensive risk reduction plans. We have been able to utilize grants to develop this new state of the art technology. With the amount of assets we have the ability to help protect, we believe we could secure additional funding from the public and private sectors within a given region to support the additional expansion of data utilization through a data run fee structure for access to site specific adverse impact risk mitigation planning data.

In October of 2021 we will demo the developed Supercomputer 3D Inundation Modeling capability to top stakeholders in both SC and GA. We believe once we demonstrate the power and efficacy of this tool we will be able to garner additional funding support from both public and private sector funding sources. 

Working in collaboration with our partners we received in August 2019 EDA grant funding for $385,000. We also received in February 2020 NFWF grant funding for $215,000. In addition to the above, R.I.C.E. through the South Carolina Aquarium Conservation Department has served as the title sponsor over the last five years for the annual Sandalwood Community Food Pantry (SCFP) Run/Walk for Hunger (http://sandalwoodrunforhunger.com/) held in the historic Mitchelville Gullah Geechee community on Hilton Head Island, SC. Through this effort we have been able to help the SCFP raise over $100,000 dollars to go towards offsetting costs in conjunction with the resilient green modular food pantry design/build demonstration project.

The currently awarded NFWF grant in collaboration with GATECH, USC, SCDNR and SCA is a planning grant. We have been commissioned to develop a green infrastructure resilience strategy for the Ashley/Cooper River watershed. Once this initial planning grant is executed over the next 18 months we are then eligible to apply for a larger NFWF grant in the $3-5 million dollar range to support a large scale green infrastructure restoration/resilience project in our region. The one complicating factor is the NFWF 1:1 non-federal match requirement. Ultimately, we need to secure enough non-federal match support to provide R.I.C.E. with the opportunity to apply for and receive the larger NFWF grant. 

Our estimated expenses for 2020 is $160,000. 

I believe by elevating our work and the communities we desire to serve that R.I.C.E. could receive national support. The Elevate Prize will provide funding but most importantly will give R.I.C.E. a platform to raise the profile of this effort to connect with a global community of practice in relation to preparing communities for the numerous threats posed by Climate Change. 

We would like to have enough funding to provide 3D Supercomputer Inundation Modeling for the entire South Atlantic Bight Coastal Corridor. We would also like to have funding to promote green infrastructure health and resilience planning. We are also seeking funding to design/build the first category 5 hurricane green modular resilient food pantry in the state of South Carolina. By having the right strategic marketing and media exposure we believe R.I.C.E. could attract national funding to support the mission and goals of this initiative. 

MacArthur Fellows: Funding and Creative Support

Kresge Foundation: Funding

Rockefeller Foundation: Funding