The online Data Science and IoT for Port Logistics Conference gathered speakers and participants from all over the world. We are all interested in innovation, but what are actually the applications for smart ports that we can expect in the future? You can find the 4 first innovations in this blogpost. We now present you 3 other innovative ideas that were presented during the conference.

1) Green smart ports

Currently, we are facing ecological problems in the whole world. Luckily, there are possible solutions. Mr. Sigal from Eco Wave Power talked about wave energy, an innovative technology for the production of clean electricity from ocean and sea waves. It can help to solve the climate problems that we are experiencing and causing ourselves because we live in an unsustainable present. Renewable energy can be part of the solution, as it is close to its users, it is stable and abundantly available. There are also some competitive advantages: it is reliable, fully insurable, cost efficient and environmentally friendly.  Eco Wave Power has developed the only grid-connected wave energy in the whole world! (Picture above)

2) Efficient energy calculation

Another interesting pitch came from Mr. Delhom from CET Evolution Energie who created a software solution for the energy transition of (smart) ports. The problems now are that energy management is going slowly. It is disconnected from services and energy bills and requires a lot of time and effort. The increasing pressure from society on organizations on how they handle their carbon foot print doesn’t help either.

He stated that a smart port needs a visualization of energy consumptions and an energy contract management. It is also helpful to have cost tracking, energy efficiency, energy trading & balancing and more reporting, for example on carbon emissions.

Their solution is to take control of the cost, independently of the location. They developed a software program that uses data energy collection, independently of the source. You can put contracts in it, energy data, costs, actions and it will show your CO2 footprint and it will report to you. The big advantages of this program are that it saves a lot of time and it is efficient.

3) The human aspect

When we think about innovation, we often forget the most important element: the human aspect. Bigyellowfish is an employee experience platform which helps employees to overcome their everyday challenges when an innovation has been introduced. Mr. Pancholi explained that Bigyellowfish wants to improve the human element risk so people will feel better at work and they will be more efficient. Innovation doesn’t only impact the individual but also their environment.
 

“Be creative but the most important of all is to not forget the human element.”
Kunal Pancholi

The mobile application of Bigyellowfish includes cognitive games, anti-stress exercises, positive psychology, psychological support, management connect, progress & leaderboard, resilience & coping mechanisms.
There is also a Management level with a management dashboard that shows the risks and the causes of psychological problems. This application helps the management and it creates trust with the employees. They want people to be more productive at their jobs by helping them to become more creative problem-solvers.

Stay tuned for more interesting conference takeaways! 

Jari Hellemans