Scaling Ethical Ocean AI with Emily Charry Tissier, Whale Seeker

Welcome back to Planet & Purpose, a LinkedIn Newsletter featuring professional insights and personal experiences from ocean and climate ecopreneurs, VCs, advocates, and beyond.

If you’re new to my page and this newsletter, welcome! I’m Daniela V. Fernandez , Founder & CEO of Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA).

Today, I’m thrilled to be joined by Emily Charry Tissier , CEO & Co-Founder of Whale Seeker , a startup member of SOA’s Ecopreneur Network.

This AI-powered and scientist-assisted, B Lab -certified, Solar Impulse Foundation -validated, UNESCO award-winning startup is helping to make marine mammal monitoring and detection faster, scalable, and more accurate with their proprietary AI technology, M?bius.

Why is this so important??

Ship strikes kill an estimated 20,000 whales worldwide each year—AND that number is presumed to be far lower than the actual estimate, given that many ships are unaware of or simply do not report fatalities.

Additionally, with established migratory routes changing due to warming waters and other climate change impacts, predicting where maritime traffic and marine mammal migratory patterns intersect is becoming increasingly difficult, especially when tracking efforts are manual.

In the interview below, you will learn how Whale Seeker is preventing strikes and scaling ethical ocean AI in our final Planet & Purpose edition of 2024.?

Stay tuned for more interviews with ocean trailblazers in the new year!

Until then, I wish you a restful and restorative end to your 2024. ‘Sea’ you next year!

Daniela (DVF): Welcome to Planet & Purpose, Emily! I am thrilled to have you as the final interviewee of my newsletter for 2024.

Emily Charry Tissier (ECT): My pleasure! We are so grateful to you and Sustainable Ocean Alliance for supporting Whale Seeker’s vision of safeguarding our ocean through innovative technology.

DVF: It is an absolute honor to foster innovative solutions like yours through the Ecopreneur Network. Now, let’s begin. Please share the journey you took that led to Whale Seeker.

ECT: My professional journey has been anything but linear—and that’s been a huge advantage.

I started out as an ecologist focused on data analysis and biostatistics. Early on, I spent countless hours cleaning up messy datasets that were not clean or standardized.?

Then when I went on my maternity leave, my husband (a marine biologist) and I received a WWF Arctic Species Grant to map critical narwhal habitats for a Marine Protected Area (MPA).

Through this project, we manually analyzed thousands of aerial images. This traditional process was slow, error-prone, outdated, and inefficient.?

Looking at those images, the universal problem hit me: this bottleneck impacted industries like conservation, government, construction, and shipping.

DVF: In response, you devised a pioneering solution. I know the story, but please share!

ECT: Exactly! That realization is what sparked Whale Seeker.?

In 2018, I co-founded the company alongside my husband Bertrand Charry with the goal of building ethical AI solutions that make marine mammal monitoring faster, more scalable, and more accurate.

Launching wasn’t easy. We were two biologists without a tech background, trying to break into a world that often feels closed off.?

It wasn’t until I met our third co-founder Antoine Gagné —a software developer—at a dog park that we found the technical expertise to turn our vision into reality.

DVF: Alongside your co-founders, Whale Seeker accomplished exactly what it set out to do: innovating and disrupting an outdated process. Your technology helps biologists work 97% faster than the manual process—a testament to your innovation.

ECT: Thank you! Scaling Whale Seeker with my co-founders has been an incredible journey.?

We’ve built a multidisciplinary team, participated in accelerator programs like your program at SOA and Techstars , and developed tools like M?bius that are now recognized internationally.

We have detected over 167,000 animals to date, including polar bear tracks and penguins. We have processed 260,000+ images and our work has spanned the globe, from the Arctic to Antarctica.

Notably, we are proud to be the first certified B Corp using AI “in the service of wildlife” and have since been recertified with a higher B Impact Score.?

This milestone underscores our pioneering role in using technology for the greater good and highlights our commitment to sustainability.

DVF: Tell me, why did your team decide to go through these certification programs?

ECT: We pursued the B Corp certification to ensure that Whale Seeker’s growth was aligned with rigorous social and environmental standards, holding ourselves accountable to all our stakeholders.?

This certification isn’t just a badge—it’s a framework for continuous improvement that guides us to make decisions with integrity, transparency, and a commitment to sustainable impact.

We are also signatories of the Montréal Declaration for a Responsible Development of AI. This declaration suggests an ethical framework for the development and deployment of AI to achieve inclusive, equitable, and ecologically sustainable development.

DVF: Truly admirable! Those aren’t the only frameworks Whale Seeker achieved, correct?

ECT: Correct. Our AI-powered solution M?bius is now recognized globally for its ability to help clients in industries like offshore wind, oil and gas, and shipping meet their environmental goals.?

Our technology enables these sectors to achieve rigorous regulatory goals and sustainability requirements efficiently, helping them adhere to compliance standards while minimizing their environmental impact.

The cherry on top? Conservation becomes a natural byproduct of our work!?

By moving from labor-intensive processes to AI-assisted solutions, we are effectively revolutionizing marine monitoring and creating an evolved sustainable framework for the entire marine industry.

As such, UNESCO selected our tech as a top 10 AI solution supporting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and we secured the Solar Impulse Foundation Efficient Solution recognition, a validation of our efforts to make tangible sustainability and conservation impact.

DVF: Why should sector peers and competitors also pursue sustainability certifications?

ECT: We encourage others in ocean tech to consider certifications because they establish trust, promote accountability, and ultimately strengthen the sector as a whole.?

By upholding B Corp standards, we can all collectively build a foundation for ethical ocean AI that prioritizes both innovation and the planet. We’re proud to lead the way for our industry’s responsible scaling, creating solutions that benefit people, ecosystems, and economies alike.

Looking ahead, we are eager to apply to the Ocean Solution Label from SOA and the Solar Impulse Foundation following last week’s launch! We’re sure it will open more partnerships that support our mission and the long-term vision for a sustainable ocean.

DVF: I’m biased, but I couldn’t agree more! And science shares the sentiment. Research from 麦肯锡 found that products with multiple ESG-related assertions grow twice as fast as products with only one.?

So, pursuing these certifications and accolades like SOA’s newly launched Ocean Solution Label is strategic for any environmentally-focused founder or business.

ECT: Absolutely, especially in today’s challenging fundraising environment.

Demonstrating that ocean tech is both a viable business opportunity and a catalyst for sustainable development is key to attracting investment in today’s evolving economic landscape. Certifications like that of the SOA Ocean Solution Label affirm this through rigorous third-party evaluations, thorough application processes, and more.

We’ve found many investors are just beginning to understand this emerging field and that it falls outside traditional funding models in many ways.?

Communicating the value and impact of our work often means educating investors on the potential of both our unique tech solution and the broader sustainable blue economy sector in terms of scalability and profitability.

For anyone seeking investment in this sector, I’d recommend focusing on validating how your business:

1. Addresses immediate market needs (in Whale Seeker’s case, we offer instant access to monitoring impact for clients to adjust their operations and minimize legal/operational risks)
2. Supports long-term sustainability objectives (our clients can reduce harmful marine impacts).

DVF: Speaking of impact, are there any other external proof points of Whale Seeker’s solution that we have yet to mention?

ECT: Yes, I’m actually really proud to share a pivotal moment for us that came just last year! Our AI model’s speed and accuracy were validated through a 2023 study, Scaling Whale Monitoring Using Deep Learning: A Human-in-the-Loop Solution for Analyzing Aerial Datasets.?

In this research, our team collaborated with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, analyzing a large aerial dataset to monitor beluga populations.?

The study demonstrated our model’s 91.4% agreement with expert biologists, even exceeding the 88.6% inter-observer agreement among the experts themselves.?

DVF: That is incredible! I’d imagine emphasizing Whale Seeker’s accuracy is an important distinction for clients and investors since anyone who has used common AI tools has likely noticed the risk of errors.

ECT: Definitely. Part of our work is to educate the global community about the differences between varying AI models.

'Generative AI'—what many people can access for free to create new data like text, images, or music—can often be factually inaccurate and flawed.?

In contrast, 'Analytical AI' interprets data to identify patterns and provide insights. This is what Whale Seeker uses to spot marine mammals in vast datasets.?

We also constantly train our algorithm with the latest available data for accuracy and offer expert oversight—hence the 'human-in-the-loop' inclusion in the name of the research I shared above.

Of note, analytical AI is far more energy-efficient and can process 10 to 1,000 times more images than a generative model could produce—with the same energy.

This efficiency stems from model size and complexity. This is technical, but analytical models like Whale Seeker’s typically operate with 50-100 million parameters. Even the smallest Generative AI text models begin at 1.1 billion parameters and popular models range from 7 billion to 70 billion parameters. Some even exceed 400 billion parameters!

All of which is to say, analytical AI is better suited for accurately observing and cataloging real-world data and is a far more sustainable choice for responsible marine monitoring.

DVF: Thank you for clarifying the important distinctions! What other challenges or barriers have you encountered in scaling Whale Seeker, especially ones that other founders may face?

ECT: One of my biggest challenges as a female co-founder and CEO has been navigating an industry where women are significantly underrepresented. Beyond funding and scaling, it’s about establishing credibility. T

To do this, I actively confront stereotypes, advocate for inclusivity, and push for representation, because diverse perspectives drive better solutions and also more sustainable outcomes.

Rather than seeing this as a barrier, I view it as an opportunity to advocate for the value that diverse voices bring to innovation.?

At Whale Seeker, we have the opportunity to address this gender gap head-on. We prioritize team diversity to strengthen our mission, broaden our impact, and lead by example, creating a more inclusive environment in the tech and ocean industries.

DVF: As a fellow female Founder/CEO, this resonates deeply. Any other lessons you’ve learned along the way that might help founders in their journeys?

ECT: Yes, definitely—and this goes back to what I was saying about my early career experience in manually analyzing data.?

That exhausting analysis underscored both 1. the sheer amount of data needed to make a meaningful impact in conservation and 2. the limitations of some traditional processes.

This experience led me to the realization that technology could be the solution to bridge these gaps, driving efficiency and accuracy where manual methods fall short.

The lesson for others??

Never underestimate the power of scalable, innovative solutions in conservation!

For anyone starting out in ocean or climate-focused ventures, I encourage you to think beyond immediate solutions and explore how technology can help solve long-term, systemic issues.?

Finding scalable approaches not only makes your work more sustainable but also opens doors to broader impact—especially as environmental challenges grow.

DVF: Thank you for that helpful guidance! Aligned with that, based on your experience, how can people channel their passion into purpose, generate profit, and benefit the planet?

ECT: Great question. It’s all about aligning passion with an actionable, impactful goal.

In my case, it was creating technology that serves both ecological and economic purposes.

By identifying a specific need—in our case, fast, scalable marine mammal detection—we could develop a solution that attracts clients and supports the planet.?

Focusing on real, everyday problems can turn a passion into a purposeful and profitable business.

DVF: I couldn’t have put it better myself, and honestly, that’s the model I followed with Sustainable Ocean Alliance. I was passionate about solving two problems: 1. a lack of focus on solutions and 2. the exclusion of young people from determining their future.

We created SOA as a youth-forward network that could collectively solve these issues in the ocean and climate sector through innovation and scaled, global collaboration!

ECT: Speaking from experience, I’m so glad that you saw that need and founded SOA.

This network has provided Whale Seeker with a platform for meaningful collaborations and immersed us in an invaluable community of like-minded ocean entrepreneurs.

Being part of SOA allows us to connect, exchange insights, and work toward shared sustainability goals. It has opened doors to partnerships and provided us with resources that have been instrumental in Whale Seeker’s growth and commitment to ocean conservation.

DVF: I’m really touched, thank you for sharing how SOA has impacted Whale Seeker’s trajectory. #DreamTeam and I are so honored to have you in our community!

ECT: We are honored to be a part of it. For any reader who wants to join us in scaling ethical ocean AI and advancing ocean sustainability, I’ve included opportunities in the BONUS below.

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WORK WITH WHALE SEEKER

Whale Seeker is currently recruiting Marine Mammal Observers (MMOs) for an upcoming study. Sign up to participate here.

If you’re a passionate expert who’d like to join us in advancing marine conservation and ethical technology, we’re always looking for diverse team members! Submit your CV here.?

For updates on projects, open roles, and general opportunities, sign up for Whale Seeker’s newsletter here.

OPPORTUNITIES IN SOA’S NETWORK

NEW: Apply for the SOA Ocean Solution Label!?

The Sustainable Ocean Alliance Ocean Solution Label, in partnership with Solar Impulse Foundation, is the first-of-its-kind certification that recognizes ocean-positive, sustainable, and profitable solutions.?

It builds on the Solar Impulse Efficient Solution Label as a ‘stamp of approval’ for businesses that pass our rigorous evaluation process and meet ocean-specific criteria in both sustainability and economic growth. Applications are reviewed and accepted on a rolling basis. Learn more & apply here.

Join SOA’s Ecopreneur Network Class of 2025

Are you a founder of a for-profit, ocean-positive startup? Make your New Year's resolution to apply to SOA’s Ecopreneur Network Class of 2025!?

We are accepting applications on a rolling basis. Learn more & apply here.