Mario Špadina, CEO and co-founder of SeaCras, holds a doctorate (Ph.D.) from the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission and the University of Montpellier. Mario completed two post-doctoral contracts at Ruđer Bošković Institute and the University of Ljubljana.

He has published 13+ scientific papers in the fields of physics, chemistry, and applied mathematics. During his scientific career, Mario founded an award-winning company SeaCras and has served as CEO since. Company SeaCras specialises in the development and implementation of monitoring systems for pollution hazards detection and analysing the health of the sea by utilizing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, and satellites.

In 2022, Mario was recognized as one of the Emerging Leaders under 40 by the European Forum Alpbach and was named among the "Top Executives and Innovators" by the World Economic Forum in 2024.

Beyond developing innovative marine technologies based on earth observation data, he actively contributes to national and EU strategic planning in the areas of the blue economy, innovation ecosystem development, impact financing and climate security.