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High Seas CoLab

A collaborative workshop series to co-design BBNJ infrastructure.

High Seas CoLab is a workshop series designing the technology layer of the BBNJ Agreement. We convene with delegations, communities, scientists, and technical builders across the Pacific, Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, and Europe to co-design the systems that make the treaty work in practice.

Every convening aims to produce two primary deliverables: a documented set of design decisions that will guide Ocean Agentics' recommendations for the BBNJ Clearing-House Mechanism, and a working prototype for workshop attendees to bring back to the communities they represent.

Bring a CoLab to your region
A collaborative table with laptops, notebooks, and coffee during a work session.

WHO SHAPES THE WORK

Prototyping to build consensus

Adopting a technological platform is difficult without an iterative process that allows users to test it and shape its development. This is especially true for a global platform, where decisions are made multilaterally and often involve geopolitical sensitivities. The CoLab uses prototypes to build consensus around what the platform should do and how it should work.

Policy makers: Legal mandates, regional priorities, and legitimacy.
Policy makers
Managers: Operational reality, monitoring needs, and stewardship experience.
Managers
Researchers: Data reality, ecosystem knowledge, and evidence standards.
Researchers
Technologists: Systems thinking, tools, and implementation pathways.
Technologists
Island communities: Local knowledge, lived impacts, and participation safeguards.
Island communities

FOCUS AREAS

Each CoLab focuses on one or more of the BBNJ pillars that need technology support.

Marine genetic resources

Connecting existing databases and repositories, with a focus on the Standardized Batch Identifier (SBI) and the systems that support traceability.

Area-based management tools

Understanding the tools that already exist for marine spatial management and working out how they combine into creating proposals for MPAs.

Environmental impact assessments

Reporting workflows and the systems that support submission, review, and ongoing monitoring of assessments under the treaty.

Traditional ecological knowledge

How traditional knowledge can be shared as part of the BBNJ, including the rules, protocols, and safeguards that govern how it enters the system.

OUR APPROACH

How a CoLab is shaped.

Each CoLab is designed in collaboration with workshop participants. The format adapts to the region and the implementation question the community is working on while the underlying principles stay consistent.

01

Principles

Shared principles for every CoLab

  • MULTI-STAKEHOLDER DIALOGUE

    We use methodologies established in UN-adjacent convenings, with Chatham House Rule applied where candor on sovereign positions matters.

  • DOCUMENTED DISSENT

    Decisions are recorded alongside the objections raised against them, so minority positions survive into the recommendations that follow.

  • OPEN BY DEFAULT

    Code, methods, and documentation Ocean Agentics co-develops with workshop attendees are built to modern engineering standards and released under open licenses, so the work is accessible, auditable, and portable.

  • DATA SOVEREIGNTY

    Systems we build give knowledge holders authority over how their data is governed, shared, and used. For Indigenous communities, this means designing to the CARE Principles (Collective Benefit, Authority to Control, Responsibility, Ethics) and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) protocols.

A group gathered in a room for a collaborative discussion.

02

Shape

A workshop that moves work forward

The exact agenda is built with the host, but a multi-day CoLab typically moves through these stages.

  • Learn

    A short session on what the treaty calls for in the focus area, what tools and systems exist today, and where the gaps are. Designed to bring everyone into the room on equal footing, including those who do not work in technology day to day.

  • Co-Design

    Small-group sessions on the host's specific implementation question. Objections and concerns are surfaced and documented as part of the design record.

  • Build

    Working in pairs and small teams to produce something real: a prototype, a draft framework, or a working tool the community can share with the people they represent.

  • Continue

    Each CoLab produces relationships that extend past the convening. Working groups formed in the room often persist through virtual collaboration and contribute to subsequent CoLabs.

03

Formats

Formats that fit the region

  • CoLab INTENSIVE

    Multi-day co-design work following the charrette methodology, with Ocean Agentics technologists working alongside participants, producing prototypes and protocols for the technology each BBNJ pillar needs.

  • CoLab ROUNDTABLE

    Multi-day convening led by the host community within their own governance structures, with Ocean Agentics providing technical capacity and facilitation for community-designed CHM protocols, including how traditional ecological knowledge is shared and protected..

  • CoLab SIDE EVENT

    Shorter peer-led work held along the ocean conference circuit (Climate Week NYC, Blue Earth Summit, CBD COP17, UNFCCC COP31, BBNJ COP1, World Ocean Summit), surfacing implementation questions and feeding the documented design record.

PARTNER WITH US

Bring a CoLab to your region.

The technical infrastructure that lets countries, scientists, and coastal and Indigenous communities actually work together on BBNJ is still being shaped.

Each CoLab is co-organized with a host institution or coalition that brings the convening question, the venue, and the participants. Ocean Agentics brings facilitation, engineering, and knowledge of the BBNJ process to turn design decisions and prototypes into working systems and recommendations for the Clearing-House Mechanism. Please get in touch if you are a host institution, a regional coalition, or a funder interested in supporting this work.

Get in touch