In recent years the emerging technologies, potential benefits and challenges that make up the world of fishtech have drawn increasing attention and, in many quarters, urgency. Those of us involved share a sense that although progress in fishtech — and oceantech more broadly — is often uneven, it’s also inevitable. There are simply too many smart, well-motivated people working in these areas for it not to be. The companies and projects we profile at EM4Fish are creating and adapting technologies in real-time, pioneering new ways to acquire, transmit and analyze data in order to increase the resiliency of marine resources. That’s a mission for good.
Meanwhile, deployment of EM tech at scale means tackling tough questions about data 
retention, privacy, and broader fisheries policy as well as potential new value-streams to be derived from fisheries data. And the first thing to consider when asking any tough question is whether or not someone else has already answered it.
That’s why we’re pleased to partner with Net Gains Alliance (NGA) and the Duke Center on Law & Technology in presenting Fishing for Data, an on-demand webinar series commencing May 28th.
“One of the things we think about a lot at Net Gains is how we can bring lessons from outside fisheries into fisheries,” says Kate Wing, one of the NGA team members working to develop the podcasts. “These tech and data challenges are new to fish but they’re often issues that other fields and other agencies have already struggled with. And they’re challenging in part because they’re at the intersection of so many roles: legal, policy, IT, science, and management.”
The Fishing for Data podcast lineup looks like this:
- May 28: Electronic Monitoring Data and the Federal Record
- June 4: Areas of Potential Secondary Data Usage (“Visual Bycatch”)
- June 11: Electronic Monitoring and the Magnuson-Stevens Act
- June 28: Live Q & A
According to Wing, a 2019 meeting on data governance brought the idea for Fishing for Data into focus.
“When we met the Duke Center for Law & Technology we thought they’d be a great partner to host some of those sticky cross-topic conversations. We asked them to go out and find speakers who could bring some new perspectives to these big, unresolved questions around privacy and data sharing.”
Three on-demand podcasts will be followed by a live Q&A session on June 18th to conclude the series. Wing says that going with an on-demand rather than live-broadcast format has advantages for both participants and audience. “While originally we were planning to do live panels for all the episodes, we ended up going with podcasts because it turns out lawyers don’t like to ad lib on camera.”
To get your question(s) in the queue, please send them to info@netgainsalliance.org.
UPDATE
The first three of our four podcasts are now live on the DukeLaw website. Find them here.
