The Online Ocean Symposium was founded in 2012 when Andrew Kornblatt was helping the Google Oceans Program and the Blue Ocean Film Festival with their communications and partner relations.

It was soon discovered that while there are many ocean science and conservation organizations in the world doing great things, those organizations were not communicating - let alone collaborating. These organizations needed help with strategic communications planning, digital media development, and networking.

The Symposium was created to act as a consulting service for mission-driven organizations in the ocean, conservation, and clean technology industries, and to collect and amplify the stories of the ocean science world.

In addition to consulting, the Symposium creates video discussion forums and produces the podcast Ocean Science Radio.