Ciaran Dowds is Co-Founder and CTO at Oshen, a Plymouth-based robotics company building a persistent, wide-area sensing layer for the world's oceans using swarms of autonomous micro-vessels. His engineering expertise drives the development of Oshen's C-Star robots, which combine wind and solar power with satellite communications to collect critical ocean data at scale.

Ciaran holds a Master's degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London, where he was recognised on the Dean's List for academic excellence. Prior to Oshen, he developed an app used by NHS speech therapists to support children and gained defence experience working at DSTL.

Ciaran's passion for sailing directly shaped Oshen's mission, including a pivotal moment solo sailing a 25-foot boat through force 5 winds to recover an early prototype. He co-founded Oshen alongside Anahita Laverack after the pair identified a critical gap in real-time ocean data collection.

Oshen bootstrapped its early development from a 25-foot sailboat used as a floating test lab, later securing an Innovate UK grant, angel investment from notable backers including Wayve co-founder Amar Shah, and winning the Ignite Space Launchpad pitching competition in 2023. The company raised $5M in a Seed round led by Lunar Ventures in 2026.

Oshen's C-Stars became the first ocean robots to collect in-situ data inside a Category 5 hurricane, with data feeding directly into the US National Hurricane Centre's official forecasts. The company now employs nearly 30 people and has 100 more C-Stars on order.