DITTO Summit 2026 | Digital Twins of the Ocean

Pre-Summit event #1

Hands-on Training Workshop on Build, Connect and Take Home Your Digital Twin of the Ocean

Date & Time: 9th (09:00–17:30) and 10th (09:00–12:00) November 2026
Venue: Miyoshi Hall, JAMSTEC Yokohama Campus (https://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/access/yokohama.html)
Format: Hands-on, in-person workshop

This hands-on workshop introduces participants to the complete pathway from an ocean challenge to a useful Digital Twin of the Ocean (DTO), and explores how individual twins can connect to a growing regional, European and global ecosystem. Participants will work through key steps including defining user needs, designing the twin, integrating observations and data, ensuring interoperability, connecting models and analytics, developing user-oriented outputs, and making components portable and reusable. Using a Marine Protected Area and biodiversity case as a common example, participants will work in small groups to develop a Digital Twin Canvas that can also be adapted to applications such as fisheries, aquaculture, marine pollution, coastal hazards, offshore activities, climate adaptation and marine spatial planning.

The workshop also marks the launch of “How to Build Digital Twins of the Ocean: Challenges and Opportunities in Setting Up Pilot Sites” as a free, online, self-paced course. Developed from practical experience in European Digital Twin of the Ocean activities and expanded with resources from the wider international community, the course provides a pathway from problem definition and stakeholder engagement through data, interoperability, architecture, applications, scaling and sustainability. Participants will also be introduced to complementary training resources from EDITO, Destination Earth, OGC, Copernicus Marine, Blue-Cloud, AquaINFRA, EMODnet, IOC-UNESCO and Ocean Best Practices. The workshop concludes by addressing a central DITTO question: what needs to be common, and what can remain local or application-specific, for Digital Twins of the Ocean to become part of an interoperable global ecosystem?

2026 DITTO Building and Connecting Digital Twins of the Ocean

(Workshop registration details will be available here soon)

Pre-Summit event #2

Workshop on Connecting the DOTs: Building Collaboration Pathways

Across Digital Twin Ocean Initiatives

Date & Time: 13:00 - 17:00, 10 November 2026
Venue: Miyoshi Hall, JAMSTEC Yokohama Campus (https://www.jamstec.go.jp/e/about/access/yokohama.html)

Draft agenda:

Welcome & Framing
Icebreaker: DTO Constellation - understand the room and what participants exposure to and experience with DTOs
DTO Lightning Introductions - individual introductions of people and their projects
Needs & Haves Marketplace - jointly figure out which (shareable/reusable) tools, components, strategies are in use in DTOs and how they can be adapted to other environments/requirements
DTO Knowledge Sharing Clinic - 2-4 volunteers share their (specific) challenge on a DTO project, other participants work together to support them in finding solutions
Collaboration Pathways & Commitments - what collaborations are possible, can happen and will happen? How can such a (informal) collaboration community be facilitated? What do participants
Wrap-Up & Reflection

Main Organizers & Facilitators:

Sigmund Kluckner, sigmund@kluckner.eu (Main Facilitation/Contact, Freelance Consultant & IEEE France)
NASA: Laura Rogers, Nicole Ramberg-Pihl
BLB: Bente Lilja Bye
NOC: Justin Buck

Sign-up for this DITTO Summit Workshop on Connecting the DOTs – Fill out form

Pre-Summit event #3

Webinar “From Insight to Impact: Integrating Marine Biodiversity into Digital Twins of the Ocean”