June 13, 2019 — Last month, Apple announced it would be phasing out its digital music marketplace iTunes – a decision that surprised Darian McBain, the global director of sustainable development for Thai Union Group, one of the world’s most prominent seafood suppliers.
Reading an article about the twilight of iTunes as she arrived in Bangkok, Thailand for the 2019 SeaWeb Seafood Summit (SWSS19) – taking place 10 to 14 June – an analogy formed for McBain between the evolution of music portability and the evolution of worker voice in the technologies and programs trialed by Thai Union in recent years.
McBain, presenting at SWSS19, referenced Thai Union’s work with Mars Petcare, Inmarsat, Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, and others in 2016 and 2017, when the parties launched a digital traceability pilot program that involved outfitting Thai fishing vessels with One Fleet terminals to encourage real-time connectivity between land and sea. As fast as vinyl records evolved into tapes, CDs, and MP3s, so too did the scope of the pilot and Thai Union’s thought-process surrounding it, McBain recalled.
Thai Union and its partners were training workers to use “Fish Talk” chat applications developed by Xsense in response to new regulation from the Thai government, which required Thai vessel owners operating outside of national waters to provide a satellite communication system and device onboard for workers at sea. That’s when the evolution began, McBain said.