WHOI Collaborates on a “Bigger Than Us” Mission for the Ocean at TED2019
For a second year in a row, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) is making waves at the annual TED conference in Vancouver—this time, with an immersive exhibit called Mission:Ocean.
This visually stunning installation represents a unique collaboration between WHOI, OceanX, and the BBC, supported and designed by the Avatar Alliance Foundation. These organizations share a dedication to our ocean world for its stunning beauty and the essential role it plays in sustaining the health of our planet and the wellbeing of people everywhere. Together, they are working to ignite a new conversation about our planet’s largest shared resource.
“This collaboration is coming together at TED2019 for the first time,” said Sam Harp, WHOI’s Vice President of Advancement and Chief Marketing Officer. “It brings together world leaders in ocean discovery, innovation, exploration, and storytelling. This is unprecedented, and it’s exactly the right mix needed to raise awareness and motivate action to sustain the ocean ecosystems we enjoy and depend upon for life and livelihood.”
The focal point of the Mission:Ocean exhibit is a larger-than-life video installation spread across five, 13-foot-tall screens. Featuring spectacular footage from the participating partners, as well as NOAA, NASA-JPL, and WHOI's Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory—in addition to thought-provoking text—the video takes viewers from the ocean surface, through the shadowy twilight zone, down to hydrothermal vents and the deepest ocean trenches. From there, viewers are swept up and away to the outer reaches of the solar system, where WHOI and NASA are collaborating on deep-ocean exploration and the search for extraterrestrial life in the oceans of other worlds.
Complementing the video are a number of additional displays giving an insider’s view of ocean research and discovery. Among them are SharkCam, WHOI’s autonomous underwater robotic tracking and imaging system that gives scientists a shark’s eye view of ocean life, and a piece of an actual hydrothermal vent, collected 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) down on the ocean floor by WHOI scientists aboard the iconic human-occupied vehicle Alvin.
The Mission:Ocean exhibit builds on WHOI’s appearance last year on the TED stage. Speaking at the TED2018, WHOI biologist Heidi Sosik told a global audience about WHOI’s Ocean Twilight Zone project, a mission to explore and understand a critical but little-known region of the ocean. WHOI was among seven visionary entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations to be recognized by The Audacious Project, which surfaces and funds critical ideas that have the potential to impact millions of lives. The $35 million award was the largest philanthropic gift in WHOI’s history.
“We are excited to be part of TED2019,” said WHOI Board Chair David Scully, “with our partners OceanX, the Avatar Alliance Foundation, and the BBC. We are at the dawn of a new age of discovery driven by our relentless pursuit of knowledge and advances in technology that are leading to unprecedented insights and ultimately, real world impacts on the big wicked problems we face as a society. We hope this collaboration will help focus world attention on the ocean and the amazing role it plays in sustaining life on our planet.”
About TED
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, often in the form of short talks delivered by leading thinkers and doers. Many of these talks are given at TED conferences, including our annual gathering in Vancouver, as well as TEDWomen, intimate TED Salons and thousands of independently organized TEDx events around the world. Videos of these talks are made available, free, on TED.com and other platforms. Audio versions of the talks from TED2019 will also be published to TED's podcast TED Talks Daily, available on Apple Podcasts and all other podcast platforms.
TED's open and free initiatives for spreading ideas include TED.com, where new TED Talk videos are posted daily; TEDx, which licenses thousands of individuals and groups to host local, self-organized TED-style events around the world; the TED Fellows program, which selects innovators from around the globe to amplify the impact of their remarkable projects and activities; the Audacious Project, which surfaces and funds critical ideas that have the potential to impact millions of lives; TEDSummit, which gathers the most engaged members of the global TED community for brainstorms, discussions, performances, workshops and an eclectic program of mainstage talks; and the educational initiative TED-Ed. TED also has a library of original podcasts, including The TED Interview with Chris Anderson, Sincerely, X, and one of Apple Podcasts’ most downloaded new shows of 2018, WorkLife with Adam Grant.
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The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is a private, non-profit organization on Cape Cod, Mass., dedicated to marine research, engineering, and higher education. Established in 1930 on a recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences, its primary mission is to understand the oceans and their interaction with the Earth as a whole, and to communicate a basic understanding of the oceans’ role in the changing global environment. For more information, please visit www.whoi.edu.
