🌊 The Ocean Awakens @ Climate Week NYC 2026
The Climate Week NYC's Ocean action hub ⚓ for Corporations, Startups & Nonprofits
The Ocean Awakens brings together leaders from business, science, nonprofits, and the arts for a half-day of panels, conversations, and networking aboard the historic Tall Ship Wavertree at the South Street Seaport.
Monday, September 21 — the day Climate Week NYC gets to work. With sustainability and ocean leaders already converging on New York for UNGA week, make the Wavertree your anchor event.
This year's program explores plastics and their cascading impacts on health, biodiversity, and climate; the new wave of maritime technology; how ocean work gets funded; policy and advocacy; extreme field action; and art, media, and storytelling.
Whether you work in sustainability, policy, science, or advocacy — this is your ocean hub for Climate Week NYC.
See full program at https://oceanawakens.com
📅 Schedule
2 PM — Check-in & Opening Remarks
Zak Risinger, Director of Engagement & Public Programs, South Street Seaport Museum
Fabien Lamaison, Executive Director, Plastic Odyssey Fund
Opening Keynote — Make It So
Disruptive deep tech, frontier innovation, and the capital that moves it.
Tom Chi — Founding Partner, At One Ventures
Keynote — A New Enterprise
The Ocean Awakens — Season 2 opens with an announcement worth being aboard for.
Simon Bernard, CEO & Co-Founder, Plastic Odyssey
Episode I — Warp to Circularity: Full Sail Impulse
Maritime panel
Sail cargo, low-carbon shipping, high-tech vessel design, and the return of wind to global supply chains.
Jacques Barreau, Co-Founder & CEO, Grain de Sail
Alex Dechelotte, Co-Founder & COO, Plastic Odyssey
Lars Oetjen, Head of US Development, VELA
Speaker to be announced
Episode II — Boldly Fund: Capital for the Blue Economy
Blue financing panel
Impact investors, foundations, and venture funds on how ocean work actually gets funded — and what it takes to scale it.
Tegan Churcher Hoffmann, Executive Director, Coastal Quest
Fireside Chat:
Peter Bryant, Managing Director, Oceans Program, Builders Vision
Panel:
Jeremy Pochman, Co-Founder & CEO, 11th Hour Racing
Rodrigo Prudencio — Managing Partner, Propeller VC
More speakers to be announced
Shore Leave — Boldly Go: Ocean Tech Startups
Upper Deck: Networking
Tween Deck: First contact with the most game-changing innovations in the blue economy — and the intrepid founders standing behind them.
Introduction by
Ann Carpenter, CEO, Braid Theory
Episode III — The Wrath of Plastics: First Contact with Body & Biodiversity
Plastics & health panel
From ecosystem to bloodstream: endocrine disruptors, forever chemicals, and microplastics are reshaping what we know about health and biodiversity. On stage, the brands and scientists cleaning up their formulas, sourcing through regenerative farming, and confronting what plastic pollution means beyond the ocean.
Professor Sarah Dunlop, Director, Plastics & Human Health, Minderoo Foundation
SVR – Speaker to be announced
Clarins – Speaker to be announced
More speakers to be announced
Episode IV — The Undiscovered Treaty
Advocacy & policy panel
The UN plastics treaty, Extended Producer Responsibility, and the push to transition away from fossil fuels — what comes next, and the regional paths forward.
Holly Kaufman, Founder & Executive Director, The Plastics & Climate Project
Dr. Tracy A. Farrell, Regional Director and CEO, IUCN US Fund
Erin Simon, VP & Head of Plastic Waste and Business, WWF
Marine Conservation Institute – Speaker to be announced
Field Report — Away Mission
From the front line: extreme cleanup & challenges on Kayak Island, Alaska.
Andy Schroeder, Co-Founder, Ocean Plastics Recovery Project
Episode V — The Voyage Home
Storytelling & season finale
Films, field sketches, and ocean stories from the front lines – and a final announcement to close the season.
Aria Luna, Artist & Changemaker
Ricky Rhodes, Producer & Director, Rhodes Films
Max Romey, Filmmaker & Painter, Trailbound Sketches
Speaker to be announced
6:30 PM — Dive Long & Prosper (networking reception on deck)
8:00 PM — Close
🚀 Bluefleet deck
A working expo floor: startups and labs building the next generation of ocean technology, with prototypes on the table and the people who made them standing behind it. Open to every guest, all afternoon. See participating organizations
🤝 Event Sponsors
Special thanks to the South Street Seaport Museum for their partnership in making the Wavertree available as our venue, and to FiveAdrift and Open Water for their generous support.
💖 Support our organizations
The South Street Seaport Museum, located in the heart of the historic Seaport District, preserves and interprets the history of New York as a great port city. Founded in 1967, the Seaport Museum includes an extensive collection of works of art and artifacts, a maritime reference library, galleries, working 19th-century print shop, and a fleet of historic vessels that all work to tell the story of “Where New York Begins.”
Plastic Odyssey is a global nonprofit tackling the ocean plastic crisis through bold cleanup expeditions, long-term stewardship of marine ecosystems, field-based research and innovation, and education that inspires lasting change.
Plastic Odyssey Fund is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit headquartered in San Francisco, created to mobilize U.S. philanthropies, corporations, governments, and individual donors in support of Plastic Odyssey's global mission. Contributions are channeled to Plastic Odyssey Foundation and Plastic Odyssey Expedition, funding coastal cleanup, marine restoration, and public awareness across the blue economy.