Key thoughts on innovation

That was the take home message from the first day of the UK Port of Tyne’s Maritime Innovation Week.

“Our maritime industry can accelerate achieving the government’s UK SHORE and Maritime 2050 goals by working together and we are delighted with the amazing response received from the entire sector,” said Matt Beeton, CEO of the Port of Tyne.

”The case for disruptive innovation has never been more compelling and Maritime Innovation Week will provide essential know how and a clear opportunity to become cleaner, smarter, more efficient, data-driven, innovative and sustainable.”

Port decarbonisation

One of the stand out talks from the first day was from Andrés Martell, Design Futures Team Lead, Connected Places Catapult, which is an innovation accelerator which exists to provide impartial ‘innovation as a service’ for public bodies, businesses, and infrastructure providers. 

The catapult also runs technology demonstrators and SME accelerators to scale new solutions that drive growth, spread prosperity and eliminate carbon.

Mr Martell outlined how the Connected Places Catapult has taken a broad ‘system of systems’ approach, considering how the shore power and other interventions will lead to decarbonisation of the existing and new Aberdeen harbours, the vessels using it and its linkages to the wider Aberdeen city region.

The aim has been to develop a transferable blueprint for implementation of decarbonisation of ports and to disseminate the findings widely to build consensus across the industry on an approach to decarbonisation to meet shared goals.

This project uses ’Strategic foresight’ is the methodical and rigorous practise to identifying and better preparing for change. Or, “Decision-making under extreme adversity,” as Mr Martell calls it.

Using this method, Connected Places Catapult has developed a strategic toolkit for investigating the future of the maritime industry which is free for all to use.

Maritime Innovation Week

The Port of Tyne’s Maritime Innovation Week has welcomed over 300 senior leaders from across the industry to challenge traditional approaches and showcase the very best of Industry 4.0 thinking and action for maritime applications. 

The four-day conference kicked off at the Port’s 2050 Innovation Hub, a centre of excellence established to help the industry access cross-sector best practice and support research into energy business transformation, before concluding as London Tech Week’s maritime stream.

The event takes place in Newcastle and London from 13 to 16 June 2022.