Digital Ocean Inc

Digital Ocean is dedicated the vision of assembling and building a toolbox of storytelling resources that will help ocean advocated tell stories that rise above the din of internet content to connect with the audience through quality storytelling. We believe that this connection will expand people’s awareness about the incredible importance of our oceans and multitude of threats that they face.Our mission is to amplify the voices of those on the front lines of environmental change by maximizing their ability to tell their story.

Digital Ocean began in 2009 as collaboration between the Bren School for Environmental Science and Management at UCSB, the Carsey-Wolf Center’s Environmental Media Initiative, and New Media Research Institute. This project began when Steve Gaines, the Dean of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UCSB and Digital Ocean Board member, brought together a group of environmental and business leaders to find a way to use the Internet to tell environmental success stories. The project began as a social media platform for activists, educators and scientists to create a community around ocean success stories and later evolved to incorporate crowdfunding with ocean storytelling. Over the years, as Digital Ocean has evolved with the changing landscape of the Internet and the needs of the environmental community of scientists, educators and activists, we have learned a lot about the needs of ocean communicators; in 2017 we synthesized all of this learning to shape a new mission while doubling down on our efforts to help tell vital stories about the oceans.