Top Tech & Business Minds Try To Save the Oceans

Shark Tag, You’re It is an online platform designed to bring in the best, most creative ways to help drive ocean conservation. Drawing from a roster of top business talent, the platform has encouraged submissions from the likes of Google and the Boston Consulting Group. All of this was made possible thanks to the Summit at Sea, to which Shark Tag, You’re It is attached. Its genesis, however, is a twisted path.

Shark Tag, You’re It is actually attached to just one event during the upcoming Summit at Sea. Considered a Davos for a younger, hipper set, the summit is a large-scale brainstorm and talent exchange for major minds and artists including Sir Richard Branson, Russel Simmons, The Roots, executives from Google, GE, UNICEF, Zappos and more. The three-day event takes place, appropriately, on a cruise ship sailing off the coast of Florida with a dedicated focus on ocean conservation and marine issues.

Think of it as one part networking, one part philanthropic mission and one part Carnival Cruise. One event during the weekend is a shark-tagging expedition to help monitor the health of Florida’s shark population. With 1,000 guests vying for a spot, the shark tagging was quickly overbooked. As a solution, the summit drew up Shark Tag, You’re It. The platform is essentially a competition: Come up with the best idea (picked by the summit) for helping the oceans and you get a chance to tag some sharks. The following question was posed: “What is the most serious issue facing the oceans today, and how can you, your company, or your industry help address it?”

The brainstorming, however, quickly outgrew the competition. As a result, the site has sparked a healthy and wildly creative conversation from some of the biggest names in tech, business and philanthropy.

“I think it’s a phenomenal idea,” says Joey Rubin, of Dante’s Fried Chicken. His idea involved turning the GPS information from the tagged sharks into musical notes to be programmed on an X and Y axis. The sharks’ movement could then create a free-form symphony at sea. “I think the summit has been a pretty elusive property for such a long time, but the community is very engaged. It’s an idea economy … it’s a currency in a way.”

Mike Stepka, Google’s VP of Strategy and Business Operations, tackled global warming as it pertains to the ocean, outlining how Google tries to cut down its collective carbon footprint.

Artist Jane Kim proposed a migrating mural and public art installation. The murals could each depict different scenes from the Blue Whale’s migratory pattern such that people could experience that migration in a dynamic way. They could be set up along a highway, for example, to give a sense of motion. “It was great to actually see people be motivated and inspired by these ideas,” Kim says. “One of the things I’ve been wondering is do people actually care about the environment?”

Both Rubin and Kim say they contributed to Shark Tag without knowing it was a competition of sorts. The cultural idea exchange has instead been the driving factor on the forum. The site is built to encourage discovery. Ideas are not categorized by type or company, leaving visitors to bounce between the proposals. This does, however, make it hard to find individual projects.

The biggest concern is that all this brainpower will go to waste. There is no obligation for any of the suggestions to be carried to completion, even those that are picked as “winners.” Yet, Rubin thinks that end-goal misses the point of the online brainstorm: “Maybe none of them happen, but you just had 50 top entrepreneurs and top influencers use their skills and the tools they had available to start a conversation.”



For her part, Kim has been contemplating a Kickstarter campaign to make her murals a reality, adding: “I’m totally concerned about [the projects not being completed]. But at the same time [Shark Tag, You're It] isn’t about that because it’s great that people are engaged and energetic. Even if these things don’t get made over night, I don’t think it’s a fail.”

Regardless of what becomes of the platform, it’s refreshing to see business leaders and their invite-only summits prioritizing philanthropy and social impact in new and innovative ways.

What do you make of Shark Tag, You’re It? Does it matter if these projects get made or is it more important to get major corporations engaged in the conversation? Sound off in the comments.