Unveiling Seaworthy 2.0
Seaworthy's Refined Vision Moving Forward
Over the last few months, the Seaworthy team has been hard at work integrating our lessons learned from Cohort 2 with our vision for scaling up in 2023. After taking some time to reflect on the highlights and lessons learned from the past year, we're excited to share our new mission and vision statement below:
Seaworthy Collective and Seaworthy Foundation (501c3), founded in 2020 in Miami, Florida, envision oceans of opportunity without barriers, where everyone can contribute to solutions and systems for reversing ocean degradation and climate change. Our mission is to enable access and inclusion in the global ocean and climate startup ecosystem. We mobilize untapped talent and ideas by building, educating, activating, and scaling our community. We empower sea change makers – current and aspiring entrepreneurs across diverse backgrounds and verticals – who drive innovation for 71% of the planet (our ocean) to regenerate 100% of the planet.
We've also updated our Opportunities for Sea Change impact verticals to focus on the impacts themselves rather than the specific technologies to get there. As we build out a regenerative blue economy, valuing each of the impacts we can create, as well as developing the systems to measure, report, and verify those impacts, are critical.
With this clarity, we're excited to roll out our newest startup program, open up applications for our next Venture Studio cohort, and get our first formal partnership opportunities out to the world.
Our Refined Programmatic Focus Areas
Community programs build localized communities and engagement while advancing ocean and climate impact innovation ecosystem development. Regular gatherings like our Climate Community Social Hour provide collaborative events that bring people of diverse backgrounds with shared passions together to build community for ocean and climate impact, while simultaneously growing our network. All of this helps drive our mission to make the global ocean and climate impact innovation ecosystem more accessible.
Social and educational programs drive inclusion of diverse talent and awareness of resources and opportunities while supporting social and workforce development. Led by the Sea Change Makers Speaker Series, Seaworthy enables access to catalytic knowledge, expertise, experience, and resources through virtual, in-person, and/or hybrid panels featuring industry experts, thought leaders, and entrepreneurs. Seaworthy also partners with community organizations to intentionally reach underserved and underrepresented communities.
Startup programs activate communities to co-create and grow scalable companies and impact while accelerating economic development and environmental regeneration. Our flagship startup program is our venture studio, a twelve-week deep dive that activates our community to co-create individual solutions by building interdisciplinary teams, while also co-creating systems of solutions with existing startups. The program drives traction and collaboration across six verticals.
Announcing Our New Founder Mentorship Program
The Seaworthy Foundation’s Founder Mentorship Program offers a year-round opportunity to become part of our startup pipeline. In this program, we work with current founders on a less intensive basis, meeting monthly or bi-monthly to drive tangible results and growth. In addition, this program allows us to extend our services to startups that want to get ahead for the chance to be part of our next Venture Studio cohort. It also allows us to support startups that either don't need the full 12-week Venture Studio program or who may fall outside of our normal focus verticals.
Learn more and apply for the Founder Mentorship Program on our Startup Programs page.
Applications Open For Venture Studio Cohort 3 - Launching in March 2023
The Seaworthy Foundation’s flagship Venture Studio program activates our community by providing accessible opportunities for anyone with a passion for making ocean impact and climate impact to contribute to solutions across any of our 6 Opportunities for Sea Change (O4SC) verticals.
Our approach is unique. We build cohorts that consist of two types of program participants: aspiring founders co-creating new startups, and current founders growing existing startups. As the first BlueTech venture studio in the United States, we work to not only co-create individual solutions, but also build systems of solutions. Over a 12-week sprint, We catalyze traction and collaboration among our cohort participants by providing access to network connections, talent, capital, and more. The program culminates in our community’s biggest event of the year, the startup showcase!
All of our startups (both co-created and existing) present their pitches and the results of our work together at the startup showcase at the end of the cohort – an event bringing together our largest contingent of community members and stakeholders (including grantors and investors). Here, the startups share their pitches and progress, as well as how they will continue growing organically after the conclusion of the cohort.
Learn more and apply for the Venture Studio on our Startup Programs page.