futurenautics issue1 october 2013

October 2013 1futurenautics

e-nauticsShipping’s technology-enabled future

The Sentient Ship | The Cyborg Crew | Shipistics | Business e-volution

futurenauticst h e m a r i t i m e f u t u r e

Issue 1. October 2013 | Quarterly


contentsEditor’s noteTh ere’s an 800lb gorilla with his nose pressed against shipping’s window–and his name is technology05

Futurenautics RecommendsKey reports, books and movies

e-nautics. Shipping’s technology-enabled futureShipping’s chance to divest itself of the economic madman?

The Futurenautics Executive PanelA unique, innovation with its fi nger on the pulse of the maritime future.

The Sentient ShipFrom nanotech to algorithms, ship technology is about to disappear

Futurenautics | Future FinanceIf data is the new battleground is tech the new asset?

Maritime Technology ShowcaseFrom meta-materials to cloud tech and apps

The Cyborg CrewHumans and machines are heading for a seamless future, both at sea

and ashore

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22 | Th e Cyborg Crew

06 | Futurenautics Recommends

14 | Th e Sentient Ship

30 | Shipistics

4 October 2013futurenautics

Publisher Roger Adamson

[email protected]

Editor K.D. Adamson

[email protected]

For editorial, advertising andevents enquiries please contact

T: +44 (0) 20 7 125 0090F: +44 (0) 20 7 125 0193

[email protected]

Digital and print subscriptionsavailable. For more information visit

www.futurenautics.com/subscribe

Published by©Futurenautics Ltd.

Suite 4b, 43 Berkeley Square,Mayfair, London, W1J 5FJ, UK

contentsShipisticsWe are entering a new era of shipping big data, bring on the Shipisticians30

Social Cyborg IntegrityWelcome to the next-generation marketing, HR & CSR

Maritime Nation SpotlightWhat makes a maritime nation? And what will it take to remain one?

Business e-volutionNew models, new sources of revenue, and new, aggressive competitors lie ahead.

The Gamification of KnowledgeSerious games are training’s brave new world.

Coming upTh e Cloud Issue, Th e Futurenaut Interviews, Futurenautics Radio Show & Futurenautics live in Hamburg and at Posidonia.

Ship Efficiency RoundtableTop industry players at the 5th SingTel ICT event fi nd value, not cost, is key.

GadgetsFrom Google Glass to the Nymi, this is tech with real potential.

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48 | Th e Gamifi cation of Knowledge

45 | Technology Roundtable

53 | Gadgets


the stone age’ by many analysts and that has to change, rapidly. To date access-ing information about each of these new technologies in isolation has been a tough job; fi nding a resource which analyses them in the context of the ship-ping and maritime business, impossible. But with the prospect of slightly better times for shipping on the horizon, now is the time we must understand, develop

a clear strategy and invest in shipping’s technology-enabled future. Futurenautics has been designed to help.

Futurenautics is the term we’ve coined to express the vastness of ship-ping’s technology-enabled future and this fi rst issue of what will be a quar-terly print journal is our opportunity to explain what we mean by that. In order to do so we’ve broken things down into seven spheres of infl uence and four key themes: Th e Sentient Ship, Th e Cyborg Crew, Shipistics and Business e-volution.

As you read you’ll become aware that each of these four topics impacts and aff ects the other—they’re all intimately connected—but creating these headline themes make the future a little easier to navigate.

Our next issue in January 2014 will be less of a manifesto and more a normal mix of interviews and features. We will showcase maritime and other technologies, recommend reading curated from across the industry and business spectrum, focus on the chang-ing profi ciencies and skill-sets of the people you need to recruit and off er a technology slant on funding, invest-ment and M&A. Our prime purpose

At the time of writing the inaugural London Interna-tional Shipping Week gala

dinner has just concluded. Backs have been slapped, alcohol consumed and relationships reaffi rmed. Piracy, regula-tion, the depressed state of the industry, and the rising cost of fuel has all been debated. But standing outside uninvited, similarly resplendent in its black-tie dinner suit, nose pressed against the glass stands an 800lb gorilla—and his name is technology.

Th e world is on the brink of a step-change which many are already describ-ing as a new industrial revolution. We face a rapidly approaching future where M2M, big data, nanotechnology, cloud computing, learning algorithms, 3D printing, and the rise of the ‘Millennial’ generation will converge to irrevocably change the way we do business.

Sitting at the heart of so many com-plex value and supply chains shipping has to respond to these converging trends, and they hold as many opportunities as they do threats. Th e industry will always be intimately connected to the fortunes of the world economy, but—properly harnessed—the power of these technolo-gies to produce innovative new ships, revenue streams, shipping and maritime businesses, and even people, is the key to shipping fi nally becoming the master of its own destiny.

Yet even holding the promise it does, this technology revolution is getting little air-play in shipping. Technology still means engineering; future ships mean green or eco and communications means GMDSS. Th e reality is that shipping is already considered to be operating ‘in

editor’s note

“Standing outside, uninvited, similarly resplendent in itsblack-tie dinner suit, nose pressed against the glass, stands

an 800lb gorilla-and his name is technology.”

however will be to provide timely and strategic insight into our four key areas of focus, using the Futurenautics website to host extended multi-media content.

We are also already planning a series of events and roundtables—including at Posidonia next June—to which we shall be delighted to welcome you. Th ese events, this magazine, the website supporting it and the radio show which

launches next year are all independently owned and operated and we actively seek your feedback and engagement with the issues we raise.

One of our most signifi cant innova-tions is the Futurenautics Executive Panel, a standing panel of senior shipping and maritime leaders whose insight and input we’ll be mining for the benefi t of our readers and the wider industry over the coming years. Membership of this quite elite panel is by invitation only so if you do receive an invitation to join I urge you to please accept.

Nothing is certain—only that you will not agree with everything we say. But if it prompts you to ask a few questions that you wouldn’t otherwise have asked then we’ll have done our job. Th is indus-try will change, but the extent to which it is the master of its own destiny lies in the hands of this and the coming generation of shipping and maritime leaders. Fu-turenautics’ mission is to inform, educate, engage and entertain an innovative new generation—of Futurenauts.

It’s good to have you along.


recommendsFuturenautics

Two years in research the Global Marine Trends 2030 report is a collaboration between Lloyd’s Register, Qine-tiq and the University of Strathclyde. Th e PDF fi lesize is big, but there are a lot of pictures so the information isn’t too dense. Read for: the fascinating demographic and economic projections. Download from Lloyd’s or the Futurenautics website.

Lloyd’s - Global Marine Trends 2030

DNV - Shipping 2020

DNV developed a large-scale simula-tion model to help the predict the up-take of particular technologies and share the results here. Read for: limited but interesting data from a small sample of owners about which technologies they’re planning to trial or implement.Download from GL DNV or the Fu-turenautics site.

Th e Leading Maritime Capitals of the World - Menon

McKinsey - Th e Internet of Th ings and the future of manu-

facturing

Produced for Nor-Shipping by Menon this report focusses on maritime capitals ranking them now and for the future. Read for: the interesting discrepancy between the objective measure of im-portance and the subjective expert views. Download from Menon or the Future-nautics website.

McKinsey consultants sat down with sen-ior people at Robert Bosch to talk about how Manufacturing 3.0 is developing. Only a few pages, it’s a brief but powerful read. Read for: the clarity of approach, and an appreciation of how pivotal sup-ply chains are going to be.Download from McKinsey or the Fu-turenautics site.


SMM - Missing the boat?Social Media for Maritime

Th is free whitepaper is extracted from “Missing the Boat? A Comprehensive Evaluation of Social Media for Maritime Businesses” which off ers both strategic insight, practical guidance and clear rec-ommendations for shipping and mari-time businesses using social media.Read for: the only strategic analysis of maritime social media available.Download from the Futurenautics web-site. [NB Futurenautics readers get a 50% discount on the price of the full re-port by entering the code Futurenautics at the SMM checkout.]

Th is sweeping study by PwC, with more than 40,000 responses off ers evidence of the aspirations, work styles and values of professional service employees in the Mil-lennial generation.Read for: the truth about stereotypes and guidance as to how organisations must adapt their companies to retain them as employees. Download from PwC or the Futurenautics website.

PwC - NextGen: A globalgenerational study

Books - PAYLOADDonate to

Th e Mission To Seafarers

Corrupt ship managers, fraudulent Lloyd’s brokers, Somali pirates and a ship controlled via satellite cyber-piracy—but if you want a break from the day-job pick up a copy of PAYLOAD. Th is maritime-themed action thriller has already found many fans amongst shipping people, and even better 20% of all the royalties are donated to charity Th e Mission To Sea-farers. Treat yourself or someone else to a signed copy this Xmas at no extra charge. Visit the Futurenautics website for more details.Read for: far longer than you intended.

Th is month sees the release of Hollywood’s take on the hi-jacking by Somali pirates of the Maersk Alabama. Despite allegations that the movie has taken considerable liberties with the truth, it’s one shipping folk should see, if only to bore their companions nit-picking the details...

Opens 11th October 2013

Captain Phillips

Image credit © Sony Pictures


in part, an explanation for the worst downturn in shipping in living memory?

Th e development of future sce-narios and stochastic modelling is quite fashionable of late in shipping circles. In a joint venture earlier this year Lloyd’s, Qinetiq and the University of Strath-clyde produced the “Global Marine Trends 2030” report designed to map out a range of potential future scenarios and stimulate refl ection and discus-sion. In a similar but more focussed vein DNV produced the Shipping 2020 report, trying to identify what shipping will look like in 2020.

Both of these are very accomplished and fascinating reports and tell us a lot about the maritime industry. Unfor-tunately—certainly in the case of the Lloyd’s report—the primary thing they tell us is that when it comes to its future, shipping doesn’t even have its hand on the tiller. Th e idea that shipping’s cyclical bi-polar economic rollercoaster is beyond its control is simply being reinforced. Like Socrates’ description of the male libido, shipping is destined to remain shackled to the madman that is

Hindsight has 20:20 vision, so the old adage goes. Which is probably the case

for embattled German shipping lender HSH Nordbank. According to a report by Reuters, HSH is on its way back to the European Commission regretting its decision to repay its original post-crisis bailout and asking for the majority of it back.

Explaining the EUR3 billion hole caused by its shipping portfolio in 2009 a HSH source says, “Th e shipping industry deteriorated surprisingly. Th e regulatory requirements changed, not in a way the industry expected, the hurdles went up. Based on the information at the time, the chances of what happened happening were very low.”

Whilst one appreciates that there’s a diff erence between a bad decision and a bad outcome, can it really be credible that shipping and its wider maritime stakeholders can be that bad at predict-ing the future of their industry? In an environment where ratifi cation and introduction of regulations are measured in terms of years, can this really be, even

the global economy, just a passive reactor to world circumstances and by 2030 exhibiting no signifi cant innovation or change.

But change and innovation are two things the industry badly needs. Th e prolonged downturn has exposed the soft underbelly of archaic business attitudes and opaque practices still en-trenched in some shipping and maritime quarters. One analyst has already de-scribed the industry as operating ‘in the stone age’, but if shipping is struggling now it’s diffi cult to know how it will cope with what is on the horizon.

Global Marine Trends 2030 focusses exclusively on the global drivers external to maritime—geopolitical, economic, environmental and demographic. But perhaps the most crucial—technology—the report doesn’t touch. Describing technology as enabler, not driver; disrup-tive but unforeseeable, its impact upon shipping—including 3D printing, robot-ics and artifi cial intelligence—is rated alongside global economic collapse.

Th e report is correct to be scared be-cause the potential threats are manifold,

e-nauticsShipping’s technology-enabled future


but its analysis is fl awed in two crucial respects. Firstly, the technological future is, at least partly, foreseeable. Secondly, it off ers as many opportunities as it does threats. Shipping fi nally has an oppor-tunity to—if not entirely divest itself of the economic madman—at least loosen the chains suffi ciently to give it unprec-edented room for manoeuvre. Th e key to this seismic change is technology, and whether you like it or not, it’s not only coming—it’s already here.

On July 1st 2012 this new era re-ally began. Th e introduction of IMO’s ECDIS mandate marked the fi rst con-crete implementation of its e-navigation agenda. Although nominally a navigation issue, the actual scope of the e-navigation agenda in practice is much wider. It is de-signed to bring about increased safety and security in commercial shipping through better organisation of data on ships and on shore, and better data exchange and communication between the two. And that goes far deeper than a simple IT change.

Taken together with the glass bridge and IP satellite communications sys-

tems IMO’s mandate supports a wider convergence of maritime technolo-gies. Th e transition to new, digital and technological-based standards of opera-tion and monitoring within the maritime space is something we term ‘e-nautics’. Driven by regulation, commercial neces-sity and global change, together with IMO’s agenda, it includes the increasing use of voyage optimisation and routing software to reduce fuel costs, the rising implementation of applications designed to streamline operations and integrate better with customer requirements and systems, and the response to future man-dates which can increasingly only be met by the intelligent deployment of technol-ogy solutions.

To date regulation has been the prime driver of innovation within shipping, but both external and internal market pres-

sures are conspiring to make that status quo untenable. Th e environmental impact of shipping at present monopolises any discussion about the future of the in-dustry, but ‘green ships’ represent at best a tiny part of the picture and at worst a blind cross-alleyway. Th e relentless obsession with emissions reduction has meant that ‘technology’ is still shorthand for ‘engineering’ when in fact it needs to become shorthand for ‘business’.

Increasing technology convergence and IT enabled trends mean that in order to be successful those at the helm of shipping and maritime companies need to be looking across their businesses at the impacts, threats and opportunities from a technology paradigm. Th e im-portance of—and the profi ts to be made from—transitioning technology from a cost-centre to an enabler of intelligence

“Shipping finally has an opportunity to-if not entirely divest itself of the economic madman-at least loosen the chains sufficiently to give it unprecedented room for manoeuvre.”

Image credit © Getty Images


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“The shipping industry didn’t get built by people who liked nine to five desk work with no heavy lifting and a nice cup of cocoa before bed.”

and innovation at the heart of the busi-ness cannot be overestimated.

Considering the huge importance of shipping to the world economy, it is sur-prising that more innovation isn’t visible. Other transportation industries, aeronau-tical in particular, are actively investing in new technologies which will allow them to cut costs, improve effi ciency and deliver better customer experiences.

Just as importantly they are recog-nising the way that business itself is evolving in the digital age. For an object lesson in how costly miscalculating the impact of new digital technology, prod-ucts, customer attitudes and competitors can be just take a brief look at the music industry or the publishing industry. In both long-established sectors the prevail-ing wisdom held that disruption would be minor. Both have been devastated by technology companies who understand digital, data, marketing and customers.

Digital models scythe through mar-gins and middle-men slashing costs and disintermediating whole layers of busi-ness process and professional services. Don’t think shipping is immune. Take Xeneta for example, an online reposi-tory of container rates which claims its users are saving 30% and more on their budgets. It is the fi rst, but it will not be the last. Add to that the rise of 3D printing which on the face of it has the potential to decimate the container ship-ping model and suddenly you begin to get people’s attention.

If you pay a short visit to the Future-nautics website you can see a brief video of water bouncing. It was produced by GE’s advanced technologies division which encompasses nanotechnology. Th e manipulation of matter on an atomic and molecular scale is creating science fi ction materials which could revolutionise ma-rine operations. Hydrophobic nanotech coatings available now could produce dry decks, oilskins which never get wet, boots which repel water and hulls which glide through the water perpetually un-fouled. Engineering components which never rust and need no oil, water which bounces and liquid with memory will transform the marine supply chain and lifetime costs of ship operation.

Carbon nanotubes are creating new materials like buckypaper, one tenth the weight yet potentially 500 times stronger than steel, the lightness of which means

a vehicle built from it off ers improved structural integrity and allows wireless data transfer through the composite material. Already airlines are investigat-ing it for the aeroplanes of the future, what about ships? Combined with the new high throughput satellite systems such as Inmarsat GlobalXpress and Intelsat EPIC smart ships could pump data into corporate networks via applica-tions routinely held in the cloud, taking advantage of secure, reliable and scalable infrastructure, communicated via the very fabric of the vessels.

With a reputation for conservatism, insularity and—without putting too fi ne a point on it—having short arms and deep pockets, perhaps it has been assumed that shipping and maritime leaders simply didn’t want to hear all this. Certainly it is diffi cult to fi nd much

coherent coverage of these technological developments which puts them in any context for shipping and maritime lead-ers. But there are already signs that as-sumptions about the ‘technophobe’ ship-ping and maritime leadership may have been wide of the mark. A recent project by InterManager focussing on the return on investment of broadband showed clearly that shipping’s senior manage-ment have already grasped that the intan-gible cross-business benefi ts of uprated communications capability were far more signifi cant than the tangible ones—even though they are currently diffi cult to quantify. Similar opinions were voiced at the recent SingTel maritime communica-tions roundtable in Singapore (see more of that later in this issue).

Whilst there are most certainly many for whom M2M, the cloud, learning algorithms, Manufacturing 3.0, disinter-mediation, big data and nanotechnology all feels slightly overwhelming, the ship-ping industry didn’t get built by people who liked nine to fi ve desk work with no heavy lifting and a nice cup of cocoa be-fore bed. Th is is an industry built on risk, which intimately understands the rela-tionship between that and the potential reward. Th e key to getting shipping and

maritime leaders to invest in their future via technology is to give them the tools, information and context that allow them to properly evaluate both and take suit-ably informed decisions. Because whilst the threats can’t be overstated, there’s also money to be made.

Th ere is evidence that shipping may be about to emerge from the deepest trough in its collective memory. In recent years it has been understandable that many companies have just battened down the hatches and focussed on surviving.

In those fortunate sectors such as LNG where rates have been buoyant there are already companies who are making investments in technologies which are providing measurable com-petitive advantage. With better times in sight it’s essential that every shipping and maritime leader begins to understand

the new skill-sets they, their employees and stakeholders will require to remain competitive, how new consumer and customer expectations will threaten established industry structures, and the potential consequences of a failure to in-novate laying the way open to aggressive new cross-industry competitors.

Whether Reuters’ source at HSH Nordbank really speaks for it no one can be sure, but in the context of the technological onslaught shipping is about to experience his words are the unaccept-able face of complacency. In the future things will happen which the industry does not expect. Hurdles will continue to go up. Information about what is likely to happen can and must improve.

Th ere are a plethora of shipping-themed metaphors I could use at this point: we’re facing choppy seas, long voy-ages, heavy weather. But this is Future-nautics and we like to cut to the chase. Th e bottom line is that this will be hard, there will be big challenges along the way, but it has to be done.

Because if we get this wrong, in the future when it says “shipped by Amazon”, they really won’t be kidding.


The FuturenauticsExecutive Panel

»To equip senior shipping and maritime leaders with information and contextual analysis of these trends and the opportunities and threats they hold.

» To demonstrate the importance of transitioning IT/technology from a cost-centre to an enabler of business intelligence and innovation at the heart of the business.

» To help shipping and maritime leaders to understand the new skill-sets they, their employees and stakeholders will require to remain competitive, and how new consumer and customer expectations will threaten established industry structures.

» To outline the potential consequences of a failure to innovate laying the way open to aggres-sive new cross-industry competitors

» To inform, educate, engage and entertain an innovative new generation of Futurenauts.

“Comprising invitedsenior executivesthis innovativemechanism willhelp track shipping’stechnology-enabledfuture as it develops”

From ship design, materials and operations to the organisational and commercial structure of shipping and maritime busi-nesses and the jobs and skill-sets of their people both at sea and ashore, Futurenautics aims to contribute to the maritime future via fi ve core objectives:

In order to help us achieve these objectives we’ve established the Futurenautics Executive Panel.


Comprising invited senior executives from ship-ping and maritime businesses the Futurenau-tics Executive Panel is an innovative mecha-

nism through which attitudes to— and the development of—shipping’s technology-enabled future will be tracked.

By undertaking anonymised research surveys with this unique standing panel Futurenautics gains an ongoing op-portunity to gauge maritime business intention and senti-ment, technology awareness and deployment, and levels of innovation.

Complementing and extending these surveys will be live roundtables where key issues, trends and developments are debated, bringing together stake-holders from shipping and wider industries to foster greater understanding, share best practice and mine the experience of other leaders in meeting the tech-nology challenge.

As the future of shipping takes shape, analysis, trends and projections based on this ongoing dia-logue with industry Futurenauts will be published across the Futurenautics portfolio of resources.

Membership of the Futurenautics Executive Panel is by invitation only and limited to the most senior within the industry, usually at board level. Members already include Chief Executives of Ship Manager, Owner and major supplier companies, and shipping’s global membership bodies. If you are a senior leader responsible for developing and


implementing future strategy or representing those who do, and you would like to contribute to, guide and shape the conversation then do please contact us.

Th e fi rst Futurenautics Executive Panel roundtable sponsored by Singtel will take place in Hamburg in the fi rst half of 2014 and will focus on the possibilities unlocked by high throughput satellites. Th ere are also limited places available in the invited audience so if you’d like to join us please do drop an email to Futurenautics Publisher Roger Adamson [email protected] to register your interest.



The Sentient Ship

veiled ‘Vindskip’ from Lade AS, a mas-sive hull its most arresting feature, acting as a sail to harness the lifting force of the wind to pull the ship along.

Powering ships by harnessing the power of nature may be a wholesome and compliant strapline, but this tight ‘eco’ focus appears to have stifl ed the kind of innovation taking place in other industries. Th e truth is that we are al-ready witnessing the beginning of a new era of technology which is not harness-ing nature, but changing the way it tra-ditionally behaves. At a sub-atomic level we are re-writing the established laws of physics, engineering and chemistry with astonishing new materials which hold massive potential.

So Dr Sohmen is right to suspect that, even with all their impeccable green credentials, and promises of 60 or 80% reductions in emissions and fuel savings, these ships are going to look like something out of a 1970’s space adventure serial very soon. Because technology is about to disappear.

Nanotechnology is the manipula-tion of matter on a molecular scale. Th e

It is a commonly held view that the only people who really understand the pace of techno-

logical change are the very young. As the 73-year-old Dr Helmut Sohmen—Chairman of BW Group one of the world’s largest ship owners—proved recently, that is not the case. Interviewed on the subject of ‘green’ or ‘eco’ ships Sohmen explained that he wasn’t rush-ing to order any for the following reason. “Technology is moving so fast, catapult-ing ahead,” he said, “so that when better times come a few years from now today’s eco-ships might not be as fuel-effi cient as we think in three years time. Ships being built today might look a little elderly more quickly.”

Looking at the range of designs around at the moment it’s hard to im-agine any of them looking dated. From the Germanischer Lloyd (now DNV GL) future-ship concepts to the retract-able sails and gleaming solar panels of the NYK Super Eco Ship the ships of tomorrow are all glossy and space-age, bristling with conspicuous technology. Even more high-tech is the recently un-

nanometer is a unit of measure which is one billionth of a metre and at this level materials begin to behave in unexpected ways and develop curious properties. Astonishing as it may seem scientists have created a man-made motor at this scale which is so small you can fi t 6,000 of them on the head of a pin. If you visit the Futurenautics web site you can see a video of the motor in action together with other amazing footage of water bouncing off superhydrophobic mate-rial. In shipping there is a tendency to equate technology with engineering, and engineering with scale—the largest ships ever to sail were launched this year—but the really game-changing technology is so small you can’t even see it with the naked eye.

One of the most signifi cant nanotech discoveries so far is the carbon nanotube and materials such as ‘buckypaper’ made out of them. Buckypaper is one tenth the weight and yet potentially 500 times stronger than steel. Its lightness means a vehicle built from it requires less fuel and yet it off ers improved structural integrity and even allows wireless data


transfer through the composite material. With properties like this airlines are al-ready actively investigating how it can be used for commercial passenger airliners.

Whereas anything the size of an airliner made from buckypaper may be a decade or more away there are other nanotech advances which could be used immediately for a variety of maritime applications. Hydrophobic nanotech coatings can produce dry decks, oilskins which never get wet and boots which repel water. Treated components would never rust and other nanotech coatings would render them permanently lubri-cated without the need for any oil. A hull coated in such material would sail the oceans perpetually unfouled which alone could off er a 15% improvement in fuel effi ciency.

It is diffi cult to understand why these materials and their potential have yet to gain any traction in the shipping and maritime industry when they off er so much scope. Fuel costs, always in the top 3 concerns of any operator, are directly addressed by the lightness of nanotech materials; are mitigated by the eff ect

of nanotech fuel additives; and may be ameliorated altogether with the devel-opment of ultra-long-lasting nanotech batteries.

But signifi cant as it is, nano science and materials are just one component of shipping’s technology-enabled future. With computing power doubling roughly every eighteen months the ability to au-tomate processes is accelerating quickly. Th e world’s smallest chip measures just

1.9 millimeters by 2 millimeters and is 0.56 of a millimeter thick and it is part of a new generation which will link every-thing from smart phones to refrigerators to livestock all around the world. Th e Internet of All Th ings or Machine-to-machine (M2M) is silently creating an online network of objects using sensors and actuators to monitor themselves, recognise and take action on the data

they produce. Th ese low-power chips can be embedded into anything and every-thing and are driving the advent of what is being described as Manufacturing 3.0 or Industry 4.0 (see Business e-volution). Th ey are also—quite literally—driving.

With driverless cars predicted to be widely available by 2020, most of the technology required to make them a reality is already available in high-speci-fi cation vehicles. Adaptive cruise control,

automatic parking and lane assist are all functions performed by sensors and ac-tuators in conjunction with GPS signals and cameras giving the vehicle highly accurate awareness of its surroundings. In an environment where miles of clear ocean separate them, the same thing could easily be implemented for ships.

What is really signifi cant though, is that these cars aren’t just being told to

“These ships are going to look like something out of a 1970’s space adventure serial very soon. Because technology is about to disappear.”

Image credit © Ulstein www.ulstein.com


drive, they are learning to drive. So-called learning algorithms, complex computer programmes which learn from their data have already had a major im-pact in fi nancial trading and healthcare diagnostics.

Until now accurately diagnos-ing breast cancer biopsy samples was a task fraught with errors. A learning algorithm which has been fed his-toric information about samples is now available for physicians to upload their own biopsy slides and get a malignant or benign result. Th e algorithm is 99% accurate. And with every slide it reads, it gets better. Imagine for a moment the experience of every Master, Naviga-tion Offi cer and Chief Engineer in your fl eet fed into an intelligent computer programme. Th en imagine it across every seafarer currently sailing. Th en imagine the collective knowledge base in 50 years time. You could not entrust your multi-million dollar vessel and its priceless crew to a safer pair of hands.

Lurking in one of these new future-ship designs is exactly this kind of

algorithm. Whilst the big news about the Vindskip is the huge, sail-shaped hull, what hasn’t been so widely reported is the algorithm without which the ship would be un-sailable. In order to oper-ate properly the Vindskip must make a constant series of complex calculations necessary to maintain the optimum course to catch the wind and to balance the power between wind and LNG en-gines. In short, the Vindskip drives itself. Whether this algorithm is programmed to learn from its experiences we don’t know, but one can’t help wondering where—had the project and the industry not been so myopically focussed on ‘eco’ credentials and sexy design—this little algorithm might have taken them.

It is only now that shipping is moving into an era where the potential for these algorithms, M2M and the data they feed on can be unlocked. Th e complexity and expense of deep sea satellite communications and, crucially, lack of bandwidth has acted as a brake on this technology in shipping. But with IP solutions like VSAT and Inmarsat

FleetBroadband and the new generation of high throughput satellite networks like Inmarsat GlobalXpress and Intelsat EPIC coming online, the opportunities to exploit this technology are growing.

As Manufacturing 3.0 gears up and Industry 4.0 dawns shipping, sitting at the heart of so many value and logis-tics chains, is already at a disadvantage. Siegfried Russwurm of the Siemens AG Managing Board describes the new manufacturing as ‘de-central cyber-physical systems interacting with each other and self-organising product instal-lations’. In essence, bits of the product will know where they go and will discuss with each other to decide the best way to build themselves in factories with little human interference. With the shipping industry being described by analysts as operating ‘in the stone age’, it is not just the materials and the operation of ships themselves which are important, but how ship operators use them to add value in this new environment.

For ship designers, ship yards and maritime suppliers this new world re-

“Shipping needs to begin thinking outside the box, but it could start with the box itself.”

The Vindskip from LADE looks sci-fi but the real innovation is the algorithm which allows her to sail herself.

Image credit: LADE AS


quires careful planning. 3D printing will change the way ships and machinery are manufactured and the standardisation re-quired to make M2M work properly will mean a fundamental change in the crea-tion and vesting of IPR and a subsequent change in the way businesses operate and monetise their products. For more in-depth analysis of these coming challenges read our ‘Business e-volution’ section.

Shipping needs to begin thinking outside the box, but it could start with the box itself. Containers made from buckypaper—one tenth the weight and 500 times stronger than steel without the need for corrugated panels—would in-stantly increase the capacity of every ship sailing, reduce the weight of that ship and could integrate tracking capability into their very fabric.

Scale that up to the ship itself, lighter, stronger with wireless transfer built in and no need for miles of cabling, its HTS satellite connection via fl at panel anten-nae fl ush with the ship, benefi tting from a nanotech coating which keeps it, and the hull, pristinely clean. Systems in the hull and under the alleyways will capture

the kinetic energy produced by the wave action against the ship and the footfall of the crew and turn it into electricity. Th e ship and all its components will gener-ate terabytes of data on its operation and condition which it will stream into the corporate network where Shipisticians will mine and interrogate that data for insight and advantage.

Like the driverless cars the ship will constantly sense its environment, sending and receiving data on its own status, GPS signals, and weather data and sharing it with other ships when planning routes. Forms and administrative information will be exchanged seamlessly with Ports and customs without the intervention of crew who will interact with the ship’s sys-tems via wearable tech which will keep them safe, off er a high level of security and monitor both the quality of their work and their health (see Th e Cyborg Crew for more.)

Th e most astonishing thing about that vision is that, with very few ex-ceptions, the technology to do all of it already exists. In the months and years to come we’ll identify and analyse how

and where it’s already being used both outside and inside maritime, and how that knowledge and experience can help shipping to leapfrog into the future.

Th e truth is that the ‘Sentient Ship’ could almost be shipping’s present, but in order for it to even make it into ship-ping’s future the industry needs a major shift in emphasis. Technology and in-novation cannot be the exclusive preserve of the eco and green agenda any longer or it will be to the ultimate detriment of the industry as a whole. Technology and innovation will lead to safer, cheaper, more competitive, more lucrative and, yes, cleaner, shipping. So it’s time for our ‘stone age’ industry to stop talking about eco ships and start talking about smart ships. And, more urgently, to build some.

Dr Sohmen is right in more ways than one. It isn’t just the latest ships which are going to look elderly very soon, it is the entire shipping industry. But waiting on the sidelines to see what happens isn’t an option unless—like the technology—you’re prepared to become invisible.

Carbon nanotubes the basis of ‘buckypaper’:Carbon nanotubes the basis of ‘buckypaper’:1/10th the weight yet 500 times stronger than steel.1/10th the weight yet 500 times stronger than steel.

Image credit: Getty


“So far we seem to be the only guys that have cracked the code at a price/perform-ance with a promise of taking these tech-nologies all the way down into the con-sumer electronics markets.”

Unlike typical maritime satcoms antennas Kymeta’s mTenna is fl at and forms and steers the antenna beam elec-tronically, eliminating the need for mov-ing parts. Th e 30-70 centimetre square,

Maritime Technology Showcase

Along with nanotechnology, metamaterials are creating equally disruptive advances.

Best known for research proving the vi-ability of James Bond’s invisible Aston Martin or Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak metamaterials are assemblies of specially organised structures which deliver unu-sual physical properties, enabling the ma-nipulation of electromagnetic fi elds in a way which can’t be achieved with natural materials.

Enter Kymeta, originally part of Seat-tle-based Intellectual Ventures, with Bill Gates one of its investors which has come up with Metamaterials Surface Antenna Technology (MSA-T). “Flat panel tech abounds, but ones with no moving parts using software-defi ned beam-steering, beam-forming are few and far between.” Kymeta CEO Vern Fotheringham said.

Metamaterials make it to maritime

3 centimetre thick antenna is described as being similar in form to an oversized pizza box.

With Inmarsat already a customer for its aero GlobalXpress service and e3 sys-tems bringing the technology to supery-achts Bob McCambridge, Kymeta’s pres-ident and COO confi rmed, “Merchant ships, cruise ships, and yachts of all sizes are all target markets for us. Th e technol-ogy is incredibly robust. Our technology in combination with the high-throughput Ka-band satellites will be a revolutionary change and bring true broadband to the marine sector.”

For more detail about nanotechnol-ogy and materials read our Sentient Ship article.

Image credit © Kymeta


Veson announce cloud-based IMOSLive

One of the key benefi ts of the move to cloud-based opera-tion together with fl exibility

and scalability is the reduced cost of en-try for smaller businesses. In that context the announcement by Veson Nautical that they now intend to off er a hosted op-tion for their fl agship IMOS (Integrated Maritime Operations System) solution, is positive news. Th e cloud-based IM-OSLive option eliminates up-front IT in-frastructure investment and management; in-house installation of software; and in-ternal hardware and software upkeep.

Veson have reportedly built IMOS around the way people work, enabling us-ers to make better business decisions that ultimately maximize profi ts. Today, the solution is comprised of core Chartering, Operations, and Financials modules, plus optional add-on functionality for bunker management, cargo scheduling, trading and risk management, demurrage, pool-ing, reporting, lightering, Veslink, and LNG. Th e IMOS solution also interfaces fl exibly to third party systems and market data feeds to suit client requirements.

With secure hosting and software maintenance by Veson Nautical, they claim their IMOSLive clients are able

to host their IMOS applications on re-gional cloud server instances, and con-nect to IMOS from anywhere in the world by launching the full application via a web portal. Th ey can also automate server monitoring, with regular checks performed by Veson Nautical as well as

the option for Veson-managed upgrades. Data is protected with 256-bit SSL en-cryption and the product will seamlessly integrate with local email and productiv-ity tools.

“Th e IMOSLive model is something our clients have been asking for, and we’re

Image credit © APL www.apl.com

Image credit © Veson


Global Navigation Solutions is a new kind of maritime services company, working to harness emerging technology and use it to the advantage of the maritime sector.

We continually monitor developments and trends in other industries, including the use of smart logistics and big data to bring fresh thinking to the global shipping industry. Our worldwide customer services and strategically placed distribution centres provide our customers with the fastest and most economically priced navigation products and services on the market today.

For more details visit www.globalnavigationsolutions.com


The Korean Register has ob-tained a patent on its “Smart Fleet” app which was launched

earlier this year and delivers up-to-the-minute information on vessels, fl eets, sur-veys, audits, port state control and more, direct to a smart phone or tablet.

“Smart Fleet” is available on both An-droid and iOS platforms. Surveyors and others working in the fi eld are now able to access this vital survey and technical in-

formation rapidly and without fuss whilst on the move.

KR Chairman & CEO, Chon Young-kee also commented: “We will continue to research, innovate and launch more soft-ware products to improve the service and satisfaction we deliver to shipping compa-nies across the world.”

You can watch a video of the Smart Fleet app either on the KR or the Future-nautics website.

excited to move in this direction with them. It’s a scalable way for shipping com-panies to get up and running with IMOS quickly,” says Sean Riley, Vice President of Commercial Operations at Veson.

“On top of IMOS’ industry standard workfl ows, IMOSLive provides quick and resource-effi cient implementation. Each server instance’s security is guaranteed, so clients can leave infrastructure and main-tenance concerns to us.”

For more in-depth coverage of the cloud make sure you read our cloud-themed January 2014 issue.

Insurance software sees risk go from monochrome to HD Colour

The availability of data and in-creases in computing power are set to transform the way

that risk is calculated, see Business e-volu-tion for more detail, and new risk aggrega-tion software from Sequel Business Solu-tions demonstrates how. Th e risk exposure analysis system, known as Sequel Impact, will show at a glance an underwriter’s likely exposure pattern to anything from a hurricane to a terrorist bombing to an earthquake.

Michael Graham, sales and marketing director at Sequel, said: “Th e product is particularly relevant to property and casu-alty insurers needing immediate visibil-ity of exposure to terrorism, earthquakes, windstorms and fl oods; but it is going to be highly useful to all fi rms wanting to put their exposure on one system –for example aviation, marine and livestock. In fact, any fi rm off ering insurance needs this kind

of functionality.” Designed to produce an immediate and comprehensive insight into exposures on any peril at the moment an emergency strikes the software rapidly to calculates exposures and aggregations in a variety of formats including a series of coloured bubbles indicating monetary values, superimposed when needed on geographic maps.

“Th e emphasis here is on the word ‘calculate.’ It is not simply adding up the total insured values, it is applying the pol-icy conditions which include limits, de-ductibles, excess, sub-limits – the fi nished exposure. It is the ability to look at it from a genuinely meaningful perspective.

Th e product dramatically improves decision making in insurance. It is going to change insurance from monochrome to HD colour.”

Korean Register patents smart-phone app

Image credit © Sequel Impact

Image credit © Korean Register


The Cyborg Crew

future which is integrated to the point of seamlessness, and the impact on seafar-ers and shipping will be signifi cant.

Th e term cyborg in popular culture is associated with Terminators, Replicants, the Borg and Darth Vader, and their respective movie franchises, but in the real world the description is far more complex. By using the term ‘Cyborg Crew’ to try and defi ne this area of Futurenautics, we’re talking about several diff erent types of cyborg, including hu-man cyborgs, cyborg engineering and social cyborgs. What we aren’t talking about is turning your Chief into Arnold Schwarzenegger. At least, not yet.

In fact we’re already capable of creat-ing plant-machine material. As nan-otechnology has brought us the carbon nanotube (see Th e Sentient Ship), cyborg engineering has taken those nanotubes and combined them with plant or fungal cells to create cyborg tissues.

Th ese new materials have sensory properties, can detect changes in heat and off er opportunities for electro-magnetic shielding for radio frequency electronics and aerospace technology. In

At the time of writing news is coming in of the arrest of a Chinese crewman after

a collision in Japanese waters which killed fi ve seafarers and left another unaccounted for. Th is is a tragedy, but it is sadly far from an isolated incident. According to a raft of reports from IMO downwards between 80-85% of all ac-cidents at sea are caused by human error and despite the ever-increasing burden of regulation and compliance this fi gure stubbornly refuses to reduce.

It is not that rules aren’t in place, but that they aren’t being followed: on this there is general consensus, but when it comes to how technology can address that, views diverge.

A phoney war has been waged for some time between those who believe technology can force humans to comply, and those who believe that putting absolute trust in the machine is a recipe for disaster. But it is time to move that debate on, because pitting technology against human virtues misses the point. Th e advances in technology mean that humans and machines are heading for a

short, we are now able to create tissues which can feel. Probably the most rec-ognisable cyborg however, is the human cyborg—a being with both organic and artifi cial parts.

Th ere are two well-defi ned areas of human cyborg development—the restorative and the enhanced—both are already having a major impact. In terms of restorative cyborgs—where artifi cial parts are introduced in order to restore normal human function—technically anyone who is fi tted with a pacemaker qualifi es. But advances in sensors and micro-electronics means it is in moni-toring health, preventing illness and de-livering medication that machines in the body currently hold huge opportunity.

Whether implantable or ingestible, computer chips and silicon microma-chines are a core part of the coming wireless health revolution. Available now, the CorTemp thermometer pill from HQInc travels through your digestive tract wirelessly transmitting your core body temperature. Useful for anyone with occupational exposure to high temperatures.


Image credit © 3oneseven GmbH www.3oneseven.com

Even more astonishing is the product of a team of EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) scientists. Th ey have developed a tiny device, only a few cubic milimeters in volume which, im-planted just beneath the skin, can detect up to fi ve proteins and organic acids si-multaneously, analyse their concentration in the blood and transmit the results to a doctor’s computer. It is the equivalent of having a tiny laboratory under the skin.

A wireless sensor pill from Proteus Digital Health has done something quite simple, but extremely important—it confi rms that you have swallowed it. You can then do what you need to with the data—inform your doctor, or perhaps your crewing agency, that you have taken your essential medication successfully, are clear of drugs and alcohol, or are suffi ciently rested and therefore safe to continue working?

If these sensors are to become com-monplace then the growth in digital medicine for compliance monitoring will inevitably grow. Sensors which can detect the levels of enzymes, drugs, alcohol, sleep patterns, blood pressure etc. have

clear applications for the monitoring of health and welfare of crew. And if you suspect ingestible or implantable sen-sors are still too controversial for mass introduction, there are already wearable tech devices and applications which could revolutionise the health of our 1.2 million seafarers—you can download an iPad app today which requires nothing

more than the individual to stand still and look at the display for it to record heart rate and blood pressure.

For these devices to operate eff ec-tively however, an effi cient communica-tions infrastructure is key. An essential facilitator of shipping’s big data revolu-tion comes in the shape of fast, reliable high throughput satellite networks coming on stream. Th e ability to create

wireless networks on board and perpetu-ally shift terabytes of data shoreside will fi nally create an environment where ships at sea and their crews can begin to really benefi t from the sensors and actuators of M2M, wireless data and the advances in computing power.

In addition to improvements in health and welfare this combination of

technologies could signifi cantly reduce the administrative burden crew increas-ingly face. With sensors and actuators enabling the ship to monitor and react to its environment and learning algorithms allowing it to learn from its experiences, automation of a wide variety of adminis-trative tasks and delegation to computers becomes a real possibility. Th e benefi ts of freeing crew from this administrative

“Advances in technology mean that humans and machines are heading for a future which is integrated to the point of seamlessness, and the impact on seafarers and shipping will be significant.”


burden will come from their ability to focus on their core jobs and most likely an improvement in the quality of the administration being done. In a world where some Masters are sending six separate noon reports, standardisation of electronic data exchange and formats could easily lead to savings.

It isn’t just health, but wider safety where wearable tech can drive improve-ments. So-called ‘epidermal electronics’ or what we might describe as stick-on tattoo devices are capable of transmit-ting everything from the PH value of sweat to whereabouts data. Imagine a

seafarer whose proximity to the ship is being checked every two minutes. As soon as the ship can’t fi nd him an alert is raised. If his blood pressure or pulse suddenly shoots up indicating he may be injured another alert sounds. Combined with GPS signals the tattoo becomes a tiny EPIRB—if the seafarer has had the misfortune to be lost overboard he can be located instantly.

Of course with these safety benefi ts come attendant issues and challenges, most of which shipping has never re-ally encountered before. Data privacy and security becomes paramount in an environment where highly personal information is being routinely commu-nicated wirelessly or otherwise. Already new technology is keeping pace though; the Nymi from Bionym is a wearable wristband which authenticates a user via their unique ECG pattern. Including proximity sensor and movement recog-nition the Nymi could be used to secure areas of the ship, and to control access to computer networks and data. Available next year an individual wristband is set to retail for US$79 and you can see one

in action on the Futurenautics website.In recent years the grumblings—of

seafarers that they aren’t trusted by man-agement to run their ships, and of man-agement that all the technology they’ve instituted to comply with regulations is being overridden—have grown louder. However the wholesale implementation of such monitoring technologies will be aff ecting the next generation of seafar-ers, and their attitudes to this brave new world are markedly diff erent.

Described as ‘Millennials’, the generation born between 1983-2004 are the subject of considerable research, par-

ticularly because of their response to the technological and economic implications of the Internet. Already some of this generation are sailing and the changing profi le of seafarers and their communi-cations habits and requirements refl ect that. It is the youngest of this genera-tion who are already taking advantage of monitoring. 56% of 18-24 year olds already use some kind of device to track their health; they are open to new tech-nology and expect hyper-personalisation in everything they do. Th ey also consider that if the price of getting that personal-ised life experience is giving away their data, it’s a price worth paying.

Almost all of the current England Rugby Sevens Squad fall into this Mil-lennial cohort, and they off er a clear and replicable example of how smart companies can use this generation’s will-ingness to exchange data for quality—of performance, job satisfaction or simply of life—to drive fundamental improve-ments. Th e England coaches provide players with unobtrusive wearable sensors which stream data about their strength, stamina, response times and a

host of other parameters. By carefully watching the data coming back the team has seen improvements across the board, optimising, tweaking and, amazingly, spotting a player carrying the beginnings of injury or illness before even slight symptoms appear. You can watch a video explaining how on the Futurenautics website.

When one considers the sheer expense involved, not to mention the distress to the individual seafarer, of sickness, the necessity of fi nding simi-larly trained and qualifi ed replacements, and getting the individuals on and off deep sea vessels, it quickly becomes apparent that a similar type of system could actively improve seafarer health, quality of life, plus operational effi ciency and margins.

Improvements in the connectivity of ships inevitably mean improvements in communications for crew. At the mo-ment only 2% of crew have no access to communications at all whilst at sea, but for the Millennials that situation will not persist. Now enshrined in the Maritime Labour Convention, ship operators are expected to provide a ‘reasonable’ level of communications access to seafar-ers. A recent Cisco study found that an appreciable percentage of under 25 year-olds rated access to the Internet alongside access to fresh air and water—a quite astonishing statement for those of my generation—but it highlights the changing perceptions about what kind of access will be deemed ‘reasonable’ in the future.

In order to deliver the hyper-con-nected life at sea that these Millennial seafarers want, there have to be checks and balances. Th ere are already reports of Masters fi nding crew who are supposed to be on a rest break busily surfi ng the Internet, emailing friends and family, or on Facebook. If the only way to off er this kind of access is for seafarers to be monitored and give up their data to confi rm they are suffi ciently rested etc, all the evidence suggests that they will be quite happy with the arrangement.

But the interface between crew and technology will be far closer than monitoring vital signs and chatting on Facebook. With computing power dou-bling roughly every eighteen months and the size of chips decreasing the current clunky user interfaces are likely to disap-

Image credit © Proteus Digital Health


pear. Wearable computers such as Google Glass are already taking interaction with data to new levels. Looking like a pair of high-tech spectacles Google Glass allows the user to see essential data projected in front of their eyes (see a video of Google Glass on the Futurenautics website). For those on the bridge, such advances could allow them to interact with ECDIS data whilst maintaining full situational awareness. Sensors monitoring the eye movements of the wearer could tell the ship, or shore based personnel, whether the offi cer was awake or not and even where he was looking.

Th ese wearable computers are just the beginning of the real enhanced cyborg crew, designed to deliver opti-mal performance—minimal input with maximum output—enhancing basic hu-man function by the addition of artifi cial parts. Th is is the augmented self, includ-ing retinal implants and brain computer interfaces which would allow the crew to control the ship by thought alone. Th is is in no way science fi ction. Earlier this year researchers at Brown University an-nounced they had created the fi rst wire-less, implantable, rechargeable, long-term brain-computer interface. Th e wireless BCIs have been implanted in pigs and monkeys for over 13 months without is-sue, and human subjects are next. You can see video of another BCI product on the Futurenautics website.

With the BCI shipping’s ‘social cyborgs’ will come of age. Also known as ‘Cybernetic organisations’, these cyborgs are networks of communication and control where human beings are a com-ponent. Th is is the ultimate expression of technological integration where ship and human can interact and exchange data seamlessly and constantly with each com-ponent performing optimally to ensure the safest and most effi cient operation of the ship. Shipping’s social cyborgs would appear to off er an ideal of man and machine in perfect harmony. But as the machines learn, the value of the human input may begin to decrease.

Knowledge automation—the ability of learning algorithms to take over a variety of white-collar administrative and middle-managerial tasks—is already promising to transform the employment landscape. A recent study by Oxford University found that up to seventy per cent of all US jobs are vulnerable to be-

ing taken over by computer. According to the report computers could already replace many workers in transportation and logistics, production labour and ad-ministrative support and, armed with the ability to fi nd patterns in big data sets, are also increasingly qualifi ed to perform “non-routine cognitive tasks.”

With the ability to access the com-bined data of every voyage of every vessel across the fl eet, smart materials, superb connectivity and sensory awareness, it may well come to the point where having the human part of this shipping social cyborg at sea simply doesn’t add any value, but escalates cost and risk.

But that scenario is some way off , and in the meantime there are 1.2 million seafarers and an industry carrying 90% of the world’s trade which needs to begin recruiting the skills, recognising and implementing the technologies which will change lives and businesses. At the heart of that though is that most human of emotions—trust.

Th e seafarers of tomorrow already have a high level of trust in technology, many in the maritime industry now have their reservations, but it isn’t a question

Engineers Arto Nurmikko and Ming Yin examine their prototype wireless, broadband neural sensing device.

of trusting or distrusting the technology. What is crucial is to trust the system. We are about to live through probably the most disruptive period in the ship-ping industry’s history where skills, life experiences, expectations and livelihoods will all be transformed within a couple of generations, and whether we like it or not

we will all end up as part of a shipping social cyborg. But how good or bad they are is still up to us. It is today’s shipping and maritime leaders who will build these, and their success depends on being trusted by crew and wider stakeholders to get it right

Google’s self-driving car has now covered over 300,000 miles. It is reported that the only accident it’s had was when a human being intervened. Th is doesn’t tell us that machines are good, or that humans are bad, it only tells us that the interface between the two wasn’t optimal. Th e success of the cyborg crew will be in that interface and the possibilities it will bring.

Because when you’re up against the worst that mother nature can throw at you, it’s no bad thing to have big brother in your corner.

“It may well come to the point where having thehuman part of this shipping social cyborg at sea simply

doesn’t add any value, but escalates cost and risk.”

Image credit: © Fred Field for Brown University


FuturenauticsFutureFutureAccording to a recent Bloomb-

erg report there is growing consensus that lenders are seeing an end to the maritime slump and its punishing losses. “Th ey’re now coming down, they’re not that high,” Nordea Bank AE’s CEO Christian Clausen told Bloomberg. “I don’t think loan losses in shipping are an issue anymore.”

Th is can only be good news, but with over $220 billion of debt capital required by the maritime sector between now and the end of 2014 and a huge capital com-mitment necessary to deliver the current orderbook, stemming the losses isn’t enough. Whilst Nordea stuck with ship-ping, and looks to profi t from its tena-ciousness, others are in trouble and more still have abandoned it wholesale.AMA Capital Partners value the total off shore

and shipping book at $238bn at cost and now lack of fi nancing is impacting growth beyond 2016. HSH Nordbank, the world’s largest shipping lender, said in June this year that provisions in the fi rst quarter more than tripled and is now reportedly on its way back to the EU to ask for some of its original bailout money back.

Lloyd’s Banking Group plc sold a discounted portfolio of shipping loans to US investment fi rm Oaktree Capital Management LLC and is reportedly shopping around another portfolio, while Commerzbank, the world’s third-largest maritime lender, said in June last year it would close its ship fi nance unit to focus on “business that is sustain-ably profi table.” But sustainable profi ts are presumably on off er, otherwise why

would the maritime sector be the subject of such burgeoning interest? Dagfi nn Lunde, Head of Shipping at DVB Bank SE Germany—which has $15-16bn in shipping loans on its books, made $3.2bn in loans last year and expects to do same this year, plus £100m in equity investments—could be expected to know. His view? “Th is is the right time to get into the industry not get out.”

Others agree. Earlier this year investment fi rm KKR announced the formation of Maritime Finance, a new speciality fi nance company created to lend to the maritime industry. Backed by $580m and led by former Helios Advisors partners Kristan Bodden and Gabriel Tolchinsky, Maritime Finance is an asset-based lender focused on maritime assets in the off shore oil fi eld

If data is theIf data is thenew battlegroundnew battleground

FinanceFinance


services and traditional shipping sectors. “Th is is an area that has historically been served by European banks. Th e current dislocation in the European banking sector has created a substantial funding gap in maritime asset fi nancing,” says Bodden. “With Maritime Finance, we are capitalizing on an opportunity to fi ll an obvious void while at the same time aiming to provide compelling returns and attractive yields for our investors.”

Seeing similar opportunity a newly formed project company, Maritime & Merchant (M&M), will fi le a banking license application during the autumn of 2013 with a view to commencing operations in 2014. Providing a broad range of services, including secured lend-ing, syndication, hedging products and payment services M&M’s Halvor Sveen (formerly senior vice president, Off shore & Shipping at Pareto Bank), says the bank is being established to meet the industry´s growing demand for fi nancing. “Over the past four years, the introduc-tion of stricter capital requirements has forced many banks to either discon-tinue lending to owners or scale back on activities in ship fi nance,” says Sveen. In fact according to AMA over 50% of the capacity which fi ve years ago was domi-nated by German and European banks, has permanently left the market and with the new Basel III rules coming into force, that doesn’t look like improving. But although the collapse in lending was

an unmitigated disaster for many ship operators, it has laid the foundations for a far more diverse set of fi nance sources and models which can only serve ship-ping’s technology-enabled future.

With a tight credit market leaving many with no place to go “Owners have turned to alternative sources, such as the bond market, private equity and export credit agencies, to fi ll the gap,” explains M&M’s Sveen. But far from just fi lling the gap these sources have fundamentally changed the complexion of the market. With a reputation for short-termism and an attraction to opportunities for distressed investing, private equity and hedge funds were initially regarded with suspicion by traditional shipping lenders and many owners. With day rates low enough to enable the purchase of debt at 20-30 cents on the dollar, hedge funds were bound to jump in and hold on until they could sell them for 60-70, but buy-ing debt is only one approach.

Joint ventures are becoming an equally common investment. Washing-ton private equity fi rm Carlyle Group is just one example. Together with Seaspan

Corp Carlyle set up a $5bn fund in 2011 to buy ships and related assets and many more are actively set to follow. According to DVB’s Lunde the bank is currently providing fi nancing for more than 40 PE fi rms mostly from New York and London wanting to get into the shipping market. AMA is quoted by Bloomberg as saying it has never seen such interest in shipping from funds which have spent the last year or so “do-ing their homework” and are now ready to move in. CIT Maritime Finance MD Svein Engh agrees: “After a lot of talk we’re now seeing action.”

And PE has more to off er than its liquidity. Th e rigid focus on asset-based lending by traditional shipping lenders has made shipping far more vulnerable to drops in book value: Value Main-tenance clauses such as DVB’s which stipulate the company’s assets must not fall below 125% of its outstanding loans can see operators suddenly non-com-pliant through no management failing. More seriously though, this approach doesn’t necessarily sit well with the type of investments ship operators and

“The collapse in lending has laid the foundations for a far more diverse set of finance sources which can only serve

shipping’s technology-enabled future.”


is tech the is tech the new asset?new asset?


Citigroup’s Parker: “Capital which tends to be more rigorous in its analytics is good for the industry.”

maritime suppliers need to make in the technology-enabled future.

With an investment horizon typically between 3 and 7 years and with acceler-ated growth the prime objective, PE can be a better partner for companies with the right strategy—including smaller ones historically of less interest to banks. More importantly they off er an oppor-tunity to tap a pool of technological and strategic ‘grey hair’ which is often lacking in maritime boardrooms. Technology, en-ergy and services are all sectors which are exhibiting structural growth well ahead of broader GDP trends and as such form areas of core focus for PE fi rms. With shipping and maritime sitting at the intersection of those sectors, and more, PE shareholders have the potential to transfer crucial strategic and operational insight and expertise which will allow the industry to leapfrog the technology gap and forge supply-chains geared to meet the challenges of Manufacturing 3.0.

In practice PE is already winning over the sceptical. “I take the view that new capital or capital that tends to be more rigorous in its analytics is positive for the industry,” says Michael Parker

Head of Shipping at Citigroup. “I feel that the industry needs to change.” And massive change is certainly on the hori-zon. As such, although there will always be a place for traditional asset-based lending, in order to fi nance the maritime industry of the future there needs to be a greater fl exibility in analyzing, valu-ing and funding companies which are running asset-light and monetizing new ones—particularly data. An experienced maritime leadership has always been a key investment criteria, but in order to meet these challenges boards need to broaden their expertise and skillsets considerably. While PE can bring that as a constructive shareholder or JV partner, will companies fi nd that in the future having these broader skillsets on the payroll will be essential to successful funding?

As the business of maritime funding changes and develops Futurenautics will be pursuing this technologically-focussed theme. We’ll be asking both the new and more established lenders and inves-tors if and why technology competence and technology-centric strategy within maritime businesses are increasing in im-


portance; asking shipping and maritime companies how they are making the most of the diversifi cation of tradi-tional funding models to support their technology-enabled strategies; and, pro-viding a fi nger on the pulse of maritime’s technology awareness, deployment and innovation for those looking to capitalise upon it.

In a statement following the closing of its fi rst $175m bond off ering in June this year, Hamburg-based shipping company Rickmers stated, “A structural change is taking place in the way ship-ping companies will be able to fi nance their businesses. Th e traditional sources of debt and equity fi nancing that existed for many years...are no longer available.”

Th ey are undoubtedly correct. But nature abhors a vacuum. And for those investors, lenders and maritime business-es fl exible enough to work together to facilitate shipping’s technology-enabled future, there could be major profi ts to hoover up.


undertake “a central assessment of information from all ships in (the) fl eet (to enable) the correlation of occurrences of events which may be associated, for example, with particular ports, Masters, pilots or weather conditions.” It may not have set out to do so, but OCIMF could not have done a better job of illuminat-ing at least one area—safety—in which big data has a part to play. But safety is only the tip of the data iceberg. We are entering the era of Shipistics.

As OCIMF identifi es, the aero industry has been routinely analysing its black box data for years, but their use of data extends far beyond that. Speaking to Information Week Josh Sullivan, VP of the Strategic Innovation Group at management consulting and technol-ogy advisory fi rm Booz Allen Hamilton, describes a recent project with a major airline. Th e company pulled together data on schedules, routes, fares, desti-nations and historical passenger loads and combined it with sports schedules, convention dates, school seasonality, people movement by age segment, and social media data. “Th e airline had lots

With little ceremony, and no fanfare in July of this year OCIMF (the Oil

Companies International Marine Fo-rum) introduced shipping to Big Data. Th eir snappily-titled information paper Recommendations on the Proactive Use of Voyage Data Recorder Information (avail-able on the OCIMF website) makes the point that the data collected is often ‘incomplete’, deleted after 12 hours and is only examined in the event of an accident. Why not, the paper suggests, gather more and broader data, analyse it routinely and use the results to identify behaviours and trends which will allow ship operators to intervene with training and other measures to prevent accidents before they happen?

It may have attracted little atten-tion but the OCIMF paper is the fi rst manifestation of a phenomenon which, according to McKinsey Global Research, has now reached an infl ection point. Big Data is now changing and shaping the way organisations and companies develop, operate and compete. OCIMF recommends that shipping companies

of BI (business intelligence) dashboards and PDF reports about each of these areas separately, but they had never combined all of that information and let machines go to work,” explains Sullivan. “Th e results helped the airline make adjustments to fl ight schedules and fares that have resulted in tens of millions of dollars in additional revenue.” According to Sullivan the core analysis took three people on a data science team seven weeks to complete, and proves his point that “letting smart people go off and stitch together lots of information can really pay off .”

While the airline was letting machines go to work on datasets, the performance of its jet engine blades were quietly streaming more data to supplier GE. “Our sensors collect signals on the health of blades on a gas turbine engine to show things like stress cracks,” Bill Ruh, Vice President and Corporate Of-fi cer for GE’s Global Software Center explains. “Th e blade monitor can gener-ate 500 gigabytes per day—and that’s only one sensor on one turbine. Th ere are 12,000 gas turbines in our fl eet.” At

Big Data is now changing and shaping Big Data is now changing and shaping the way organisations and companies the way organisations and companies develop, operate and compete.develop, operate and compete.We are entering the era of...We are entering the era of...


GE all that sensor data is integrated onto a big data platform revealing patterns in breakage and stress and allowing GE to tune its manufacturing and repair process before a break occurs. In this context it doesn’t take much imagination to see that a big ship with its myriad of machinery, parts and people is just one enormous fl oating data generator.

Th ere have always been three kinds of analytics: descriptive, which report the past; predictive, which use models based on past data to predict the future; and prescriptive, which use models to specify optimal behaviours and actions. In terms of safety Shipping has always been inter-ested in the fi rst two, but it is prescriptive analytics which is now attracting the most emphasis and which holds the most potential.

According to IBM 90% of the data in world was created in the last two years and, with increasing use of M2M actua-tors and sensors generating petabytes of real-time data, that should come as no surprise. But whereas airliners, trucks and locomotives are routinely pumping out streams of data, ships are not, and for

good reason. As OCIMF identifi es, the reason that VDR data is only stored for twelve hours is because data storage used to be costly. But storage was the only op-tion; because if storing data on the ship was expensive then getting data on and off it was prohibitive.

In the days before the advent of TDMA VSAT systems and L-Band IP systems like Inmarsat FleetBroadband deep-sea satellite communications were essential for compliance and crew welfare and too expensive for anything else. But things have changed since then, and are about to change even more fundamen-tally. Th e advent of new high throughput satellite networks including Inmarsat GlobalXpress and Intelsat EPIC will bring the kind of capacity unimaginable in the early days of satellite communica-tions. Ultrawideband transponders with bandwidth well over 100MHz will sud-

denly bring the ability to pump data on and off ships via corporate networks and applications well within the reach of ship operators.

So what kind of data are we talk-ing about? In a word—everything. Data is the new battleground and the more of it companies are able to collect the more opportunities there are to use it for effi ciency and competitive advantage. Th ere has already been a recognition of this by InterManager, the international association of ship managers whose KPI initiative is now the fastest growing shipping IT project in the world. Over 5,000 datasets for each KPI category is now enabling meaningful analysis and providing industry rankings for each measurement.

And it isn’t just ship operators who can benefi t. Embedded sensors on-board—for example connected with con-

“The results helped the airline make adjustments to flight schedules and fares that have resulted in tens of millions

of dollars in additional revenue.”



dition based maintenance and monitor-ing—mean that reams of data about how parts and machinery is performing and being used is available to both customer and supplier. Buried in that data are undoubtedly insights which will improve reliability, effi ciency, knowledge, margin and profi tability, but unfortunately get-ting to them isn’t that simple.

At the recent London International Shipping Week Jon Agust Th orsteinsson of Marorka echoed sentiments expressed by Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement CEO Rajaish Bajpaee, that the real chal-lenge for shipping lies in turning the streams of data coming off ships into information and then actionable insight. Doing so involves a new generation of fast, big data management and analy-sis technologies including a variety of hardware/software architectures and new analytical methods and machine learning techniques which produce insights at a super-fast rate. For shipping and mari-

time companies getting into data seri-ously for the fi rst time there is a steep learning curve. Options are many and varied including making use of cloud technologies to run big-data programs such as Hadoop.

Th e benefi ts include access to reli-able, scalable infrastructure and software which is always running on the most up to date platform, but specifying what is right for the organisation requires expertise not routinely found in shipping companies. In order to specify, estab-lish and extract value from such pro-grammes new kinds of skills and people are needed, and they are set to become increasingly rare.

It is estimated that by 2018 there will be a shortfall of data scientists in the order of 190,000 in the US alone. With competition fi erce and talent in short supply shipping and maritime compa-nies will be facing an increasingly uphill struggle to attract the brightest and best

into the industry. In order to have a chance we need a swift recognition that these statisticians, computer scientists, analysts, and in some cases music gradu-ates and physicists are as key to ship-ping’s survival as those trained to operate ECDIS and guide vessels through the Suez Canal. One of the keys to unlock-ing big data’s potential for shipping lies in prioritising these new skills and recruiting for them. As part of our Ship-istics reporting we’ll be looking carefully at how both technologies and skills can start to be embedded into shipping and maritime organisations, and follow-ing the maturing big data programmes within them. For top maritime nations today there is a similar impetus to focus on training our Shipisticians and ship-ping’s Chief Analytics Offi cers of the future. Ironically it is Eastern Europe, Russia, India and Asia—where shipping currently draws its lowest paid work-ers—that are providing the highly paid

“We need a swift recognition that these statisticians, computer scientists, analysts, and in some cases music graduates and physicists are as key to shipping’s survival as those trained to operate ECDIS and guide vessels through the Suez Canal.”


Learning algorithms will inevitably lead to the automation of knowledge work which will probably render whole sectors of white-collar managerial roles obsolete.


data scientists for the fi nance industry and others. CAO’s will not be the only unfamiliar job titles in shipping’s future. Learning algorithms will inevitably lead to the automation of knowledge work which will probably render whole sectors of white-collar managerial roles obsolete. Th e nature of Fleet Management will alter completely as machines react to rich data streams and make faster and better decisions than humans can. Predictive analysis will alter the way that risk is calculated and the availability and trans-parency of information will have major implications for both premiums and the structure of the insurance industry.

Data mash-ups including weather, tides, currents, course and speed could pinpoint lost containers even when their own tracking systems fail and new ship designs and technologies will be informed by and tested in environments modelled on real data.

Compliance with MLC and STCW will be simplifi ed by the stream of data supplied by wearable tech, and ingestible sensors confi rming crew health, sleep and

rest hours and even where their eyes are focussing. For more detail on that read Th e Cyborg Crew. Data will allow better decisions to be made; safer operations to be conducted but it will also have its own inherent value. With approximately

90% of world trade dependent upon sea transport shipping is at the centre of a bewilderingly large number of value-chains. As information-driven business models are adopted more will recognise that they are generating extremely valu-able ‘exhaust data’ from their business transactions. Such data can and will form the foundations of new, multi-sided busi-ness models (see Business e-volution).

But if we’re to unlock the potential then standardisation of electronic data interchange formats for the shipping and maritime industry are urgently needed “Every owner, charterer, sub charterer,

voyage charterer, oil major, IMO, etc, etc, have their own formats for example for Noon reporting. Many masters are now sending about 6 Noon Reports every day,” explains one senior ship manager. “For standards info such as Incident

Reporting, Illness & Injury Reporting, Incident Investigation Reports, KPI Re-porting etc, each company and charterer has it’s fancy formats which crew and Masters changing ships have to adopt, wasting valuable time and losing focus from other important operational tasks.”

It is here that shipping and mari-time stakeholders—Flag states, char-terers, Port Authorities, Classifi cation Societies—and particularly IMO whose e-navigation mandate has set shipping on the road to its technology-enabled future, have to drive through the data-focussed standards we desperately need

“Data will allow better decisions to be made; safer operations to be conducted but it will also have its own inherent value.”

Image credit © Maersk

“Every owner, charterer, sub charterer, voyage charterer, oil major, IMO, etc, etc, have their own formats for example for

Noon reporting. Many masters are now sending about 6 Noon Reports every day,” explains one senior ship manager.

34 October 2013futurenauticsOrganisers: Posidonia Exhibitions SA, e-mail: [email protected]

www.posidonia-events.com

Posidonia2-6 June 2014

Metropolitan Expo, Athens Greece

The International Shipping Exhibition

it's a great deal


data it’s tempting to retreat into a more comfortable and familiar mindset—that, to paraphrase Mark Twain, there are lies, damned lies and shipistics. But whereas statistics can prove anything, what big data off ers is something infi nitely more valuable—insight.

Th e ability to unearth and operation-alise that insight will be a core compe-tence of successful shipping and mari-time companies of the future. For their leaders, here is where it starts.

in order to realise the opportunity. Of course together with the opportunity come a variety of new problems and challenges. Th e era of proprietary data is coming to a close and the ability to collect and access it on a global basis has implications for companies and individu-als, particularly crew. Similarly, whilst pi-racy may currently be limited to men with AK47’s in open water as shipping and maritime operations increasingly move online in the future it might only take an iPad and an internet connection to leave

a ship dead in the water. (Read maritime cyber-piracy thriller PAYLOAD to see how). It may not even require malicious intent to cause seismic problems. One look at the havoc caused on the interna-tional stock exchanges by high frequency trading algorithms going rogue—essen-tially the same technology which could one day be controlling shipping business operations—is a sobering reminder that security must keep pace with every kind of evolving threat.

Faced with the complexity of big

Ship efficiency roundtable5th SingTel ICT event finds value, not cost, is key

Image credit © Wayne Lian www.wayne-studio.com

The 5th SingTel Maritime ICT event took place in the elegant surroundings of the China Club, Singapore

Now in its fi fth year the Sing-Tel Maritime ICT roundta-ble has become a forum for

topics close to the heart of ship owners. Th is year proved no exception as the event took as its theme, What’s Really Driving Ship Effi ciency?

Hosted in Singapore where the nation was frantically gearing up for September’s F1 Singapore Grand Prix, SingTel chose the quieter and more refi ned setting of the China Club in the Capital Tower for the event.

Comprising 15 of the region’s most senior ship operators the roundtable also included Tim Wilkins, Secretary and Regional Environment Manager of

Intertanko whose insight contributed to an evaluation of compliance as a driver for competitive advantage and improved ROI.

Moderated by Futurenautics pub-lisher Roger Adamson the wide-ranging discussions covered enhancing ship and information security, whether satellite technology is up to speed to achieve crew welfare and training at sea and included a look at the need for new High Th rough-put Satellites.

A lively few hours of discussion and frank exchanges found all the partici-pants in accord about one thing - that communications and connectivity can no longer be approached purely as a cost, but

must be considered as a way of deliver-ing value across the business. Th e event was followed by a drinks reception and dim sum with the spectacular Singapore evening skyline as a backdrop, where discussions about how participants could apply and implement what they’d learnt continued.

A whitepaper containing the most salient discussions, opinions and infor-mation is being made available free of charge by SingTel for the benefi t of those not there on the day. If you’d like to be notifi ed when the paper is available make sure you’re on our digital mailing list by visiting

www.futurenautics.com/subscribe


social cyborg social cyborg integrityintegritywelcome to next-generation marketing, HR & CSR

As the world’s largest profes-sional services network, jobs at PwC (PriceWaterhouse-

Coopers’) have historically been highly sought-after. In common with many fi rms the traditional PwC career path consists of what they describe as, “…an initial intense work commitment in exchange for the opportunity to make partner later on.” However around 2010 PwC began to realise that instead of knuckling down to the hard slog and dreaming of the day they might, or might not make partner, it’s most recent employees were actually turning around and leaving.

Th e fact that this clear change in be-haviour accompanied the entry into the workplace of the Millennial generation or Generation ‘Y’, was no coincidence and so, prompted to investigate further, PwC commissioned the largest study ever undertaken into what appeared to be a shift in culture amongst this new generation. Th e results form part of wider confl uence of trends impacting upon recruitment, reputation, retention, branding, innovation and corporate

social responsibility. Underpinned by increasing automation and new technol-ogy platforms a growing convergence of these functions is underway which off ers both powerful effi ciencies, and also ma-jor challenges to the traditional structure of shipping and maritime organisations.

Th e integration of machines and humans in the workplace has been taking place for more than sixty years. In 1951 the LEO (Lyons Electronic Offi ce I) computer ran its fi rst business application and since then the con-stant advances in both connectivity and computing power have changed business almost beyond recognition. According to a recent study by mobile operator O2 and the British Centre for Economics and Business Research the result is that in 2013 the average offi ce worker is now 84% more productive than forty years ago.

Part of the reason for this increase in productivity relates to the fact that the lines between work and leisure have become increasingly blurred. “A lot of the new technologies that are driving productivity today are actually those

that are contributing to an improved work-life balance and loyal workforce by allowing us to work more remotely and fl exibly,” says Ben Dowd, O2 Business Director. But it seems that on measures of work-life balance, fl exibility and loy-alty this new Millennial generation are singularly unimpressed. Understanding their attitudes and the wider trends driv-ing them is as essential for shipping and maritime organisations as any other—and possibly more so—as is the role technology will play in developing the new ‘social cyborgs’ which organisations will inevitably become (see Th e Cyborg Crew). Harnessing this technology intelligently will lead to the merger of retention, recruitment, reputation man-agement, marketing, training, innovation and CSR into a transparent and holistic management process—Social Cyborg Integrity.

By 2016 80% of PwC’s workforce will be drawn from this Millennial cohort—probably more in shipping and maritime due to the lower-skilled entering the workforce earlier—and their study off ers a real insight into just


how diff erent this generation is from its predecessors. Already the subject of much research as a result of the massive infl u-ence of the Internet on their lives, these Millennials diff er quantifi ably in a range of key ways all of which combine to make them harder to motivate, attract, train, retain and satisfy in comparison to the generations which have gone before.

For a start the rise of project-based talent and portfolio careers is a signifi cant infl uence eating away at traditional loy-alty to employers. PwC found that 80% of their respondents were either actively looking for a job or open to new off ers, with only 18% expecting to stay with their employer in the long term. Clearly Millennials don’t expect ‘cradle-to-grave’ jobs any longer and as a result are tak-ing a far closer look at the employment ‘value-proposition’ in the shorter term. Th eir sharper focus on work/life balance and their reluctance to trade quality of life for professional advancement marks a major shift likely to challenge shipping and maritime companies. Whereas their fathers and grandfathers were prepared to accept long years of isolation and sacrifi ce

at sea working their way up the ranks, possibly to achieve senior deck offi cer or engineering roles, the evidence is that our new seafarers increasingly won’t.

Millennials want more fl exibility at work, and are prepared to trade pay and benefi ts to get it—which explains why established reward structures largely based around pay and compensation are failing to retain them. Millennials are also far more focussed on the softer ben-efi ts including a strong, cohesive team-culture at work and a sense of being supported in both their professional and personal lives. Neither do they believe that productivity should be measured by time-served or hours spent in the offi ce, but rather by quality of output. In shipping where so much trust and store is placed in ‘years behind the mast’, this move to qualitative rather than quantita-tive measures of competence could mean another massive shift.

PwC’s, and much other, research sup-ports the view that this cohort do exhibit uniquely diff erent qualities from their parents’ generation. Th ey are far more ambitious, expect far faster workplace

progression, more immediate rewards and recognition and have a strong desire to feel that their work is meaningful and worthwhile. PwC sums up the danger thus: “In short, they want to work for an organisation that makes them proud; 56% said they’d consider leaving an em-ployer whose values no longer met their expectations.”

Faced by a bunch of upstarts who expect to work when they want, doing what they enjoy, with people they like, using the latest technology in companies whose values refl ect their own ethical, environmental and social beliefs, it’s hard not to snort with derision. But the real-ity is that shipping has to listen because these expectations are colliding head-on with a looming skills crisis which is go-ing to make these demanding Millenni-als some of the most valuable employees ever to live.

Th e skills gap is opening up quickly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects with jobs requiring these skillsets projected to grow at 1.7 times the rate of non-STEM jobs. Companies already report problems


“Faced by a bunch of upstarts who expect to work when they want, doing what they enjoy, with people they like, using the latest technology in companies whose values reflect their own ethical, environmental and social beliefs, it’s hard not to snort with derision. But the reality is that shipping has to listen.”


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fi nding qualifi ed candidates for job open-ings. “I worry enormously about skills,” says Steve Holliday, CEO of the UK’s National Grid Group plc. “Statistics from the UK and US on the number of kids studying science, technology, engineering and maths show that we’re not actually creating enough people with the neces-sary skills today to fuel the industry in the future.”

For shipping, where an appreciation of technology and ICT competencies is only just emerging and of which there is precious little already embedded into organisations, the situation is even more serious. Shipping needs employees who are creative problem solvers with a strong aptitude for science and technology—with data the new battleground the race is on to unearth insight and translate that into operational improvements and effi -ciencies. Pivotal to its success is the crea-tion of shipping’s new shipisticians—the data scientists who will specify, construct and mine the massive data fl ows which are going to form new corporate assets. But these valuable, STEM trained and future C-suite Millennials are looking for the kind of brands and employer-value propositions which are extremely rare in shipping. And money won’t solve the problem.

A recurrent theme at shipping and maritime conferences is the poor public face of shipping. For an industry upon which the entire world depends the only headlines we seem to make are poor ones. From piracy to pollution to fatal shipwrecks it seems highly unlikely that shipping is scoring well in the ethical ‘value-proposition’ stakes with our Mil-lennial audience. Of course the reality is wholly diff erent. For Millennials who want to feel that their working lives have meaning and are dedicated to doing something worthwhile then shipping in all its myriad forms—from safety and

carbon footprint to facilitating world trade and protecting the environment—has a lot to commend it.

But whereas we understand that, unfortunately the wider world doesn’t. Shipping and maritime is handicapped by the lack of strong brands, observably built on—and adhering to—a core set of clear values. For a generation which navigates by brands and is bombarded with more information than any other in history the Millennials have neither the time, nor the inclination, to seek out and evaluate shipping as a potential career. Part of the challenge for shipping and maritime is to use the opportunities aff orded by new social technologies and low cost digital marketing channels to connect with this generation, convince and convert them—both as employees, stakeholders, regulators and customers.

At a recent shipping CSR conference more than one ship operator voiced the concern that despite their investment in CSR activities, in a tough market no one was going to pay a premium to work with them because of those credentials. Th ere is a parallel with brand and marketing activities—an old adage says that 50% of all marketing spend is wasted, but know-ing which half is the real trick. But in the same way that technology now means that such investment in marketing and brand capital can actually be measured, plugging-in CSR along with recruitment and training not only provides an oppor-tunity to fully leverage all those activities, it allows a holistic data reporting struc-ture from which shipisticians can unearth valuable insight.

With the cloud bringing revenue per-formance management software such as Marketo and Eloqua within the reach of even smaller marketing departments, the contribution of everything from internal employee communications to external content sharing on social networks,

traditional CSR activity and clicks on digital advertising can be captured, evalu-ated and reported. Th e rise of so-called ‘serious games’ such as Siemens’ Plantville (see Th e Gamifi cation of Knowledge) off ers a chance for companies to extend the reach of such platforms to accomplish a range of corporate objectives—and generate valuable data.

For an industry with challenges of recruitment, reputation, retention, engagement, training and safe operation shipping is a prime candidate to begin investigating and trialling these new technologies. How to use social technol-ogies and gamifi cation to build brands, reputations, talent pipelines and improve employee health and even solve corporate problems, and the impact that will have on future competitiveness are questions leaders in shipping and maritime organi-sations should be asking now. Breaking down the functional silos of recruitment, marketing, PR etc. is essential to building the integrity management culture which our new shipping social cyborg will need to be successful and deliver real value for shareholders.

As part of its investigations Future-nautics will be looking at how and why other industries are implementing these technologies, their outcomes, costs and experiences, and charting how and where shipping and maritime can begin to do the same.

One of PwC’s main conclusions is that in order to meet the Millennial challenge companies must fully leverage technology within their workplaces and accelerate its integration, thus enabling Millennials to show us how to harness it in ways which will increase both fl exibil-ity and effi ciency. In short, technology is the tool. And it will fi nd the talent.

Image credit © Futurenautics


with 3 out of 4 experts ranking it as one of the fi ve leading cities. Th e objective reality is that London is ranked down at number 11

With the inaugural London Interna-tional Shipping Week recently conclud-ed it will be good news for the UK that the report’s experts consider London still to be amongst the top 5 maritime capi-tals of the world, but it seems that there is a growing gap between perception and reality. Examining the objective data used for the report reveals an even more alarming gap in understanding. Despite technology expertise and competence acknowledged as being an essential ingredient of economic prosperity, when it comes to ranking maritime capitals the Menon report relies upon one technol-ogy measure only—Classifi cation activi-ties and Port Operations.

It’s a diffi culty which Menon is not alone in encountering. For too long the accepted measure of maritime tech-nology has been engineering, but this description is far too narrow to suit shipping’s future. If you have found time to read this launch issue of Futurenautics

What makes a successful maritime nation? Th e Global Marine Trends

2030 report points out that hub or nodal port cities are special, competing in a global battlefi eld of shipping markets, and their importance is refl ected in the fact that they represent over half of the world’s wealthiest cities today. A 2012 report by Menon, “Th e leading maritime capitals of the world” attempted a deeper dive into the subject, ranking cities across four criteria: Ship owners and shipping operations, maritime fi nance, maritime law and insurance and maritime technol-ogy and competence.

It will come as no surprise that the panel of 28 experts rated Singapore as the leading maritime capital of the world, but some of the other results are more interesting. “Based on objec-tive measures Piraeus and Tokyo are the leading shipping centers, followed by Oslo,” says the report, but the gap between objective reality and subjective assessment is wide. Experts’ subjective rankings show Tokyo at position number 11. Th e situation is reversed for London

you will have built up a picture of how technology is changing every area of the industry. If maritime cities, and the na-tions in which they reside, are to retain and improve their leadership positions then they have signifi cant challenges to meet.

Th e importance of retaining such po-sitions is not inconsiderable. For inward investment nations need to attract not companies, but activities and key ones are science and education, and R&D. Both of these are inextricably linked to technology. For maritime nations to be successful in the future they will not only require high technology skills, but must enable and support technology transfer into the maritime sector.

For the nations who currently make the lists mainly because of the concen-tration of maritime professional services the challenge appears even greater. Th e Menon report identifi es London as having one of the largest gaps between its current status and future position. Relying upon the concentration of pro-fessional services and, apparently, its her-itage, the UK could be in serious danger

From the investments in digital infrastructure and adapting to the new requirements of business in the future, to training shipisticians, supporting high-tech research and enabling technology transfer into maritime, we will put the spotlight on one established maritime nation in each issue.


Maritime Nation

Spotlight

of crashing out of the rankings altogether in light of the coming potential for disin-termediation in so many branches of the shipping and maritime services market (see Business e-volution).

What does seem clear though, is a collective failure to really grasp and measure shipping and maritime technol-ogy and, more importantly, quantify its importance to the success of maritime nations.

Across R&D and education, inno-vation and personnel markets, the top maritime nations of the future should be planning and investing now. Th e devel-opment of maritime technology courses and centres which are not solely focussed on engineering, but encompass the full range of disciplines, including ICT will be essential.

As big data begins to transform shipping the worldwide shortage of data scientists will impact our industry as sig-nifi cantly as any other. Encouraging the uptake of STEM subjects within their schools and universities and employing new teaching and learning strategies to ensure skills are embedded into national

workforces is key, as is marketing ship-ping as a career to those with the skills to become our shipisticians, Masters, CEOs and Chief Analysis Offi cers of the future.

Success for these nations and their port cities lies in creating a fully integrat-ed digital infrastructure which supports the requirements of high-tech ships, services, fuel and propulsion, and future crew. Ship designers, class societies, ship yards, all need support to develop new skills and to focus on using, working with and maintaining these new materials and technologies.

Ports are likely to need to become state-of-the-art digital centres at the heart of data fl ows and integrated with each other, ship operators, charterers and the logistics chains they are serving. Which nations have the vision, com-mitment and investment necessary to succeed in shipping 2.0?

From the investments in digital infrastructure and adapting to the new requirements of business in the future, to training shipisticians, supporting high-tech research and crucially enabling technology transfer into maritime we

will put the spotlight on one established maritime nation in each issue. As part of a wide-ranging analysis of the current and future plans, attitudes to and drivers towards maintaining and improving their maritime credentials, we will speak to key players, policy-makers, companies and investors to form a complete picture of how they are approaching shipping’s technology-enabled future.

To launch the series next issue we’ll publish a league table of top maritime nations based on current measures and available data before we focus on our fi rst maritime nation, arguably that with the most to lose—Singapore.

If you are a shipping, technology, or maritime supply company, educational or fi nancial institution or investor operat-ing from Singapore then we’re interested to hear your views about its maritime future and your part in it. If you’d like to contribute to our research do please con-tact us at [email protected]



columnist writes, “Th ese include clean coal and biofuels that eventually replace oil, robotics, and something called ‘3-D printing’. Does anyone know what that is? I sure don’t.”

Th e shipping industry is consid-ered—and indeed openly described—by many analysts as operating ‘in the Stone Age’. For an industry correspondent in 2013 never to have heard of 3D printing is bad enough—for him to comfort-ably assume that his audience of senior shipping and maritime professionals will have done likewise is, frankly, shocking. And this is why.

Boeing has been using 3D print-ing for almost a decade, it currently 3D prints approximately 300 separate components for its airliners which it

In the late 1920s Harry Warner of Warner Brothers Pictures was being pressed to introduce

sound into his studio’s next movie. His forthright reaction to this prospect has gone down in corporate folklore: “Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?”

Th ere are a plethora of similar quotes from corporates unable to recognise the havoc technology was about to wreak on their industries, but none obviously from shipping. Here’s a contender for the future. Earlier this year a well-known maritime magazine for senior shipping people reviewed the Global Marine Trends 2030 report with the aim of con-densing it into salient take-aways.

Describing the disruptive tech-nologies likely to impact shipping the

says have yielded 25-50% in savings. In the automotive industry the story is even longer, they were one of the earliest adopters of 3D printing technologies—as far back as 1997—and now major car brands are producing increasing amounts of components and, in the case of the ‘Urbee’, an entire car. Meanwhile in defence, EOIR technologies is 3D printing the camera gun sights for the M1 Abrams tank, cutting costs by 60% and in health over 90% of all the hear-ing aids worldwide are produced by 3D printing, as are dental equipment, hip and knee replacements.

Th at shipping appears to have no idea about this pivotal technology should shock us. Th e companies referred to above are our customers—or our


customers’ customers—and anything which is revolutionizing the way they do business should be at the forefront of our minds. But here’s the really signifi cant thing. Many of these companies are now installing these 3D printers onsite, off er-ing the fl exibility to hone, produce and use prototypes or components far faster. And being onsite of course, they save costs on shipping. Which means—rather disappointingly—that they aren’t our customers any longer.

Even more sobering is the fact that in August 2013 UPS installed a 3D printer in their store in San Diego, several more are in the process of following. Th ey’ve been a big success. It means that now you can visit a site like www.thingiverse.com,

download the specifi cation online, go in and have that little car part, or the knob for your dishwasher which just broke, 3D printed. Th ose are just two examples but the range of things which you can print already is vast. In fact they are all the little things which go to fi ll up the big boxes on the world’s biggest ships. Run by people who apparently have no idea about a technology which, on the face of it, has the capacity to decimate

their business model? But even if 3D printing went away tomorrow, it is only one part of an epoch-defi ning range of technology-enabled trends which will aff ect every business model, margin, industry, competitor, and consumer, ir-revocably. Collectively these trends and technologies hold serious threats and huge opportunities for shipping. Allied to the rise of 3D printing is the accel-eration of M2M—also known as the

“For an industry correspondent in 2013 never to have heard of 3D printing is bad enough-for him to comfortably assume that his audience of senior shipping and maritime professionals will have done likewise is, frankly, shocking.”

Image credit © Lloyd’s of London


Internet of All Th ings—which together with advances in machine learning will create components and factories which are self-organising (see Th e Sentient Ship) and transform manufacturing by lowering costs and removing the need for inventory.

“In the connected world, we can-not separate the physical world from business processes. We capture this in the slogan “process2device,” says Heinz Derenbach, Chairman of the executive board of Bosch Software Innovations GmbH. “Th at means a physical device becomes an active part of a business process: delivering data, sending events, and processing rules. Th is notion is driv-ing us.” Dubbed Manufacturing 3.0, and Industry 4.0, there is a broad consensus that supply-chain integration will play a decisive role in these new business models. Th e implications for shipping sitting within long and complex value and supply chains are signifi cant.

Already FedEx’s SenseAware pro-gramme allows customers to use a small device in their packages which via GPS and sensors tracks both it and a range of parameters including temperature,

light exposure, relative humidity and barometric pressure. Th e data from this package—perhaps sensitive electronics or biological samples—is continually re-layed to the customer who can instigate intervention if necessary.

“It will be fascinating to see whether even large supply chain operators will be able to keep pace with the speed of technology,” warns consultant Andreas Tschiesner. But shipping doesn’t just need to keep up with these develop-

ments, it has to fi nd some way to add value to them.

Fortunately shipping’s own technol-ogy revolution is going to hit just in time to make that a possibility. Th e new world has a core dependence upon the genera-tion, submission and collection of data—in short, connectivity is at its very heart. Unfortunately for too long connectivity has been shipping’s Achilles Heel—the

fact that communications currently represents approximately 1-3% of the overall operating cost of a merchant ship tells its own story—but the real step-change is about to happen. New high throughput satellite networks including Inmarsat GlobalXpress, Iridium NEXT, and Intelsat EPIC will bring the kind of capacity unimaginable in the early days of satellite communications. Ultra-wide-band transponders with bandwidth well over 100MHz will fi nally allow ships to

metamorphose from hugely expensive, single-purpose assets, into the basis of massive effi ciencies, insights and new business models—all thanks to the data they send us.

To illustrate the importance of big data, what better than some data? Ac-cording to recent reports 85 per cent of organizations plan to use big data, but only 17 percent believe they have ad-

German auto giant BMW saved 58% in costs and 92% in time by manufacturing its jigs and fixtures with Stratasys' 3D printing technique instead of traditional CNC machining techniques.

“Shipping and maritime businesses both need to embrace and respond to the trend-running asset light andmonetizing idle ones.”



equate capabilities to make full use of the technology. Another study has found that early-adopters of big data strategies are 4 per cent more productive than their peers and have 6 per cent higher profi tability. It’s hardly surprising that the develop-ment of corporate big data planning is now being likened to the advent of corporate strategic planning forty years ago, and for virgin territory like shipping it is likely that even higher digit increases in effi ciency and productivity are possible.

What we have called Shipistics (see Shipistics) will fundamentally change ship operation, but the implications are more wide-ranging than that. Data-driven companies open up the possibility of new, multi-sided business models based on exhaust data. Sitting within a mass of value and logistics chains shipping will inevitably fi nd itself generating valuable exhaust data from its daily operations and business transactions.

An example of exhaust data models include a transport company which rec-ognised it was collecting vast amounts of information on global product shipments. Capitalising on that data it created a unit which sells it onto third parties to sup-plement business and economic forecasts. Another learnt so much from analyzing its own data that it created a business unit to do the same for other fi rms. Th is company now aggregates shop-fl oor and supply chain data for a number of manufacturing customers and sells soft-ware tools to improve their performance. According to consultants McKinsey, this business now outperforms the company’s manufacturing business.

Even where exhaust data doesn’t off er an obvious opportunity maritime companies have to be alert to chang-ing business models and sources of competitive advantage. In order to fully realise M2M’s potential it’s essential that standardization takes place. ITU agency the M2M Standardisation Task Force’s goal is ‘to facilitate global coordination and harmonization in the area of M2M standardization’. Th is will have major implications for the ’uniqueness’ of future products and therefore design and patent ownership. Th e rise of 3D printing means that more and more design specifi cations will need to be available on websites like thingiverse.com for consumers and com-panies to download and print themselves. As the music and publishing industries

have already demonstrated, making these available online leads to massive chal-lenges of monetization. Both these trends will inevitably impact the creation and vesting of IPR and its monetization. For maritime companies which have often specialised in rugged or highly-functional maritime products, this shift in empha-sis will be a fundamental one. Leaders must urgently consider how they will be impacted and what new models will be needed to protect revenues, innovation and customer service.

Th is cuts to the heart of business e-volution. Th e seamless exchange of data via low cost software-as-a-service models and the high-speed cloud is opening up new types of markets, models and even payment systems. With a predicted in-crease of between 2.5 and 3 billion more

users connected to the Internet by 2025 already businesses are becoming suppliers of assets as services.

Shipping and maritime businesses both need to embrace and respond to the trend—running asset light and mon-etizing idle ones. Other industries have shown the way—companies with excess offi ce space utilising the cloud to gener-ate revenue by off ering spaces for short-term use; Daimler launching its Car2Go service that rents out small electric cars by the minute in cities in Germany, as well as in Amsterdam and San Diego. Perhaps most applicable is the trucking fl eets renting idle vehicles by the day or hour. It isn’t diffi cult to conceive of a similar venture in shipping, taking expen-sive idle assets and using a cloud based infrastructure to monetise them direct

to consumer. Shipping-as-a-service may seem like an impossibility for those in the business, but what the growth of this new technology-enabled world has dem-onstrated is that no industry is immune.

Perhaps another contender for a hall of fame quotation comes from a blog—rated in the top ten for maritime and shipping matters—run by an anonymous, but apparently very senior and experi-enced ship broker. Would the web, one questioner asked, which can provide a central place for shippers and shipown-ers to identify each other, render the role of shipbrokers obsolete? Th e answer is a resounding no. Th e shipbroker tells us this will not happen because over past fi fteen years many hundreds have set up web-based platforms ‘only to fail’. It will not happen because ‘shipbroking is a skillset’, because the price of a shipbroker is ‘small in the scheme of things’, and fi nally because ‘too many people have too much to lose by upsetting the apple cart’. He could not be more wrong.

Business e-volution means new, aggressive, technology-centric, cross-industry competitors with their hands on the keyboard, and ears to the ground who don’t suff er from nostalgia and have no time for tradition, elites, waste or com-placency. Th ese competitors will inher-ently understand that shipping isn’t about ships and the sea, it is about customers and needs and they will—if we allow them to—teach us that lesson in the same way that Amazon taught publish-ing or Apple taught the music industry.

Th e disruption is already beginning. Targeting freight buyers and sellers Xeneta operates a price comparison service to compare and share rates against the market average and “best in class performers”. Th e Oslo, Norway-based startup enables its users to share their rates anonymously and is claiming it has resulted in savings of up to 30%. Xeneta recently raised $1.6m to fi nance their expansion and open up the path to disintermediation. In a shipping indus-try plagued with oversupply of tonnage, opaque business practices and unneces-sary complexity they—and their back-ers—have scented blood, but it seems that shipping is still blissfully unaware of its vulnerability.

Skillsets may once have been the safest of employment currency, but now jobs which were traditionally considered

“Business e-volutionmeans new, aggressive,

technology-centric,cross-industry competitors

with their hands on thekeyboard, and ears to the ground who don’t suffer from nostalgia and have

no time for tradition, elites, waste or complacency.”


unsuitable for automation are becoming vulnerable due to advances in big data analytics, machine learning and natural user interfaces. Learning algorithms are now trading stocks at lightning speed, diagnosing cancers more effi ciently than qualifi ed medics and are even making themselves felt on your mobile phone. Th e new search algorithm from Google called Hummingbird is beginning to un-

derstand the intent and context behind search terms in order to return the most applicable results.

What is termed the ‘automation of knowledge work’ has the potential to aff ect more than 230 million workers around the world and nearly $9 trillion in employment costs. According to an Oxford University study up to 70% of jobs in the US are vulnerable including

professionals, managers and administra-tive support staff —that means ship bro-kers, fl eet managers, insurance brokers, offi ce administrators, claims adjusters, to name a few. Estimates of the annual im-pact of this trend by 2025 vary between $5 to $7 trillion.

Th is has enormous implications for shipping and maritime related profes-sional services fi rms, and cities like

London and New York which have signifi cant concentrations of them underpinning their appearance in the maritime league tables. For all shipping and maritime businesses the potential for machines to increase accuracy and speed of execution across activities from case-based law and insurance to accident investigation and pattern matching of cargos and vessels over vast databases is

barely being grasped. Our ship broker’s apple cart will not just be upset, it will be vaporized, as will the advantages he claims brokers gain from fl attery and deception.

One of the hallmarks of the new world is transparency. With real-time information and instant price discovery the norm businesses have to embrace greater openness with their customers and better understand them if they want to retain them. Data is the new battle-ground but as the ‘Millennial’ genera-tion is already demonstrating, it is also becoming the new currency.

Th is transparency and data avail-ability means it is almost certain that predictive algorithms will lead to insur-ance risk being more accurately gauged and therefore policies and premiums more tailored. Th e boom in health moni-toring will mean that health costs for crew and personnel can be reduced (see Cyborg Crew), scenarios and voyages can be modeled and crew health factored in as part of the ship’s operation. Eventu-ally, with powerful predictive algorithms crunching through reams of voyage and cargo data, mashed-up with economic

“It is more than feasible that the really smart shipping companies will in the future be able to know where to put their ships before the customers know they need them. Singapore already does it with buses.”

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standardization of electronic data inter-change formats, and with self-driving cars and trucks close at hand, where is the framework blueprint for self-sailing ships? A tightly focussed IMO could help to change the dynamics of the ship-ping industry, bringing with it greater market effi ciency, transparency, innova-tion and profi tability. So, to paraphrase Kennedy, it’s time not to ask what you have to do for IMO, but what IMO can do for you.

Pearl S. Buck once said, “Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.” I opened with a quote from Harry Warner which is held up as an example of corporate folly, but if you look closely you’ll realise it isn’t a statement, but a question. Th e answer Harry got was that just because he and his peers didn’t want to hear actors talk, that didn’t mean that the next genera-tion of movie-goers didn’t either. Warner listened and then went on to make Th e Jazz Singer, Th e Lights of New York and Th e Singing Fool after which he became known as the ‘Godfather of talkies’.

Th ere are plenty of shipping and maritime leaders who are already bent on avoiding the mistake—and Future-nautics exists to support them, because now is the time to start asking questions.

And if all you’re hearing is ‘Does anyone know what that is? I sure don’t”, then the answer is you’ve been reading the wrong magazines.

Image credit © Lloyd’s of London

and company news and social media feeds it is more than feasible that the really smart shipping companies will in the future be able to know where to put their ships before the customers know they need them. Singapore already does it with buses.

It isn’t just that this is possible, but that it is shortly going to be expected. Th e generation of ‘Milennials’ which companies are now facing the challenges of encouraging into their organisations as employees and satisfying as consum-ers and clients have markedly diff erent expectations than we are used to. As leaders this generation will be open to sharing data for a common purpose and will expect state-of-the-art connectivity and devices to enhance both their work-ing lives and their quality of life. Ship-ping and maritime companies looking to encourage these men and women into their organisations may need to look at some fundamental aspects of rewards and career progression in order to recruit and retain them.

A report by PwC, commissioned when it discovered it was failing to retain large numbers of this new generation, makes fascinating reading. Globally we are facing a major shortfall in Milennials qualifi ed in STEM (Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics) subjects which are so crucial to our technology-enabled future. Not only must we attract this increasingly rare species, but fi nd some way to work with governments and particularly maritime higher-education to encourage more graduates who can become our shipisticians and CEOs of the future. At the same time we must be structuring shipping and maritime busi-nesses and workplaces ready to meet the

strategic and operational challenges the Millennials will throw at them.

Of course none of this comes cheap but the price of failure is far higher. For too long shipping and maritime has coasted on the comfortable mass assumption that the fortunes of its industry are inextricably linked to the world economy and hamstrung by the rising costs of environmental and other legislative compliance. Whilst there is undoubtedly some truth in the former, the latter simply doesn’t wash any longer and it won’t be long before a range of new businesses start demonstrating that. In a world where technology is enabling such profound change and innovation, investors want and expect to see the same from shipping, and those who begin to deliver it will see no shortage of money coming their way. In a world where data is the new battleground ship operators are in a powerful position to unlock effi ciency and revenue, the same way in-novative, disruptive start-ups like Xeneta are doing.

Shipping needs all this, but in order to get it we have to force a real paradigm shift. In the 65 years since its creation IMO has tried to keep everyone safe, but now we need something else—to be kept competitive. In its e-navigation agenda IMO set shipping on the road to its technology-enabled future, but there is a vast amount to do. As automated knowledge tools develop and make decisions based on probabilities, law and policy will have to be upgraded to accommodate issues around liability aris-ing from automation, such as situations when automated choices are contentious or incorrect. Realising the potential of big data at sea will depend upon the brisk


the gamification the gamification of knowledgeof knowledgeI

n its Maritime Transport & Navigation Journal, Constanta Maritime University described

the place of training for shipping busi-nesses thus, “When considering the overall picture of maritime business, personnel training is considered by ship-ping companies a top priority on the list of matters that infl uence competitiveness in operating cargo and vessel.”

With the activity considered so crucial to operating a competitive busi-ness, and the dire state of the industry in many sectors, it seems clear that even percentage point improvements in this area could have a major impact. Add in the increasing burden of regulation and compliance on ship operators, the accel-erating access to cost-eff ective deep-sea connectivity and the clear popularity of both shipping specifi c and wider social networking and the opportunity is clear.

Or is it? Despite all of this there are still more than a few maritime training

companies who are selling ship opera-tors the idea that sitting their crew in the mess and giving them a videotape to watch is as cutting-edge as it gets. Th e reality is that a combination of a new tech-savvy generation with high expectations of hyper-personalisation, increases in computational power and new understanding of how to most ef-fi ciently engage and transfer learning has opened a new era—the gamifi cation of knowledge.

In our industry where safety and compliant operation are paramount the challenges of training are manifold. Ensuring that seafarers spending most of their time at sea are fully trained, particularly on diff erent types of ECDIS equipment for example, is a constant headache and one which many shipping and maritime organisations are warning has the potential to become a crisis.

But there is an even more worrying dimension to the problem. Millennials—

the cohort of workers beginning to enter the workplace (see Social Cyborg Integ-rity for more)—are proving to be even harder than their predecessors to train and engage and, consequently, to retain. For shipping and manning companies the cost of traditional training methods combined with falling levels of engage-ment and loyalty all add up to a big waste of money.

Shipping is not alone in fac-ing this problem though, and already other industries are demonstrating how adopting new learning pedagogies and technology-enabled training methods can provide elegant and wide-ranging solutions.

Th e growth in MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) are demon-strating new learning pathways. Khan Academy teaches subjects in ten-minute modules and has amassed 4,000 videos that have been viewed more than 244 million times. Students can learn at their


training’s brave new worldown pace and earn badges or points as they progress. Across education there is a growing trend of applying IT to existing systems as well as fi nding new ways to make learning more adaptive, asynchro-nous (allowing students to learn at their own pace) modular and engaging. By using algorithms to evaluate responses certain systems can adapt to students’ learning experiences and tailor their content accordingly.

Th e narrowing of the connectivity gap between ship and shore as a result of new high throughput satellite com-munications means that this type of learning is becoming a real possibility for shipping. For Millennials who are look-ing for accelerated promotion, a hyper-personalised learning experience and the fl exibility to train at their own pace, this computer and cloud-based training could be the key to retention.

But it isn’t simply developing com-puting and connectivity where opportu-

nities lie. Th e really exciting possibilities come in the form of the ‘gamifi cation’ of training. According to Gartner by 2014 70% of large organisations will have ‘gamifi ed’ at least one business proc-ess and the benefi ts of so-called ‘serious games’ are gaining mainstream accept-ance. Increasingly, organisations are using serious games to attract new employees, engage and motivate their workforce, improve training outcomes and to infl u-ence the behaviour of their existing and potential customers.

A 2011 study found that both engagement and motivation levels were much higher among Millennial trainees using a game-based learning approach with procedural knowledge 14% higher and declarative knowledge 11% higher than those taught via more conventional methods including e-learning. In addi-tion those taught via serious games had a 20% higher confi dence that they had mastered the learning and could apply

that to a job task—one of the major con-cerns common to corporates who worry that skills or behaviours are not being eff ectively transferred from training pro-grammes to the workplace environment.

“Serious games provide employees with a compelling context-relevant sto-ryline, achievable goals, constant feed-back on their progress and rewards such as achievement badges and public recog-nition,” says the report Th e Use of Serious Games in the Corporate Sector. “Th ey also provide employees with opportunities to fail, learn from their mistakes and try again in safe environments.”

Using an IT based platform like a serious game also means opportunities to interrogate the data being gener-ated. Game analytics dashboards off er companies the ability to monitor and analyse how their employees are per-forming in the game, tracking develop-ments and identifying where support or perhaps intervention may be necessary.


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Th e serious game also allows the iterative improvement of the training itself. As in all Internet based processes the ability to ‘split test’ or ‘A/B test’ means that diff er-ent training scenarios and approaches can be trialled in real-time and their eff ects studied and either discarded or deployed more widely.

One large organisation using a seri-ous game to meet a variety of needs is Siemens. ‘Plantville’ gives players the opportunity and challenge of running a virtual factory, complete with evaluation of key performance indicators, allocation of scarce capital funds, and the ability to improve process effi ciency with the purchase and installation of Siemens equipment.

Factory managers in Plantville are required to hire and deploy workers, balance worker safety and satisfaction against production delivery schedules and continuously adapt strategies to changing external conditions. Siemens uses this serious game as an online marketing tool to showcase its products and services, as an online recruitment tool and also as part of its employee training.

Deloittes ‘Leadership Academy’ digital executive training programme for more than 10,000 senior executives in over 150 companies worldwide recently partnered with Badgeville to add game mechanics to its leadership training programme. As players contribute, share knowledge and complete learning programmes, they receive badges, rewards and can share these accomplishments on sites such as LinkedIn, improving their reputation in their fi eld of exper-tise. After three months of use Deloittes reported impressive results both in terms of improved engagement and module

completion. Th e positive impacts of gamifi cation on employee health have been demonstrated by Blue Shield of California, a non-profi t health insurer. Its employee health and productivity programme uses tools such as mobile apps to teach employees how to manage their health.

According to Blue Shield, follow-ing implementation the rate of smok-ing amongst employees fell by half, the incidence of hypertension dropped by two thirds and the company was able to cut the annual increase in health costs from double digits to single digits over three years. In some industry sectors the potential is being explored further.

Where the skills gap is causing serious concern for employers some are already considering developing industry-led consortia to produce recruitment tests which, rather than relying on resumés, actually test for the skills business needs. Th is has two distinct advantages. Firstly these type of assessments will allow better ‘discoverability’ of the type of in-novative talent which no exam or course can demonstrate – the creative thinking which industry needs but which so often falls at the fi rst recruitment hurdle.

Secondly it’s an opportunity for businesses to identify exactly what talent they do have in front of them and where in the business they can make use of it. In this way it would allow shipping and maritime to create a pipeline of talent for the industry and harness the entrepre-neurial, innovative streak which seems more common in the new Millennials.

Harnessing this gamifi cation of knowledge trend is part of a wider op-portunity as shipping’s social cyborgs develop meshing human and computers

ever more closely together. Th e training, engagement and retention component of a holistic Social Cyborg Integrity programme is one that companies should begin investigating now. Already there are technology platforms and game engines which will facilitate the gamifi -cation of existing training and e-learning content, and for those larger companies with broader resources and objectives bespoke serious game development—in the Siemens mould—is a real option.

Issues such as CCTV on board ships monitoring adherence to safety drills, and the use of shore-leave to attend training centres based on time-served rather than competency-based measures of training, are both addressed by an approach which delivers constant, engaging and eas-ily monitored training with measurable competency outcomes.

Anecdotally it seems generally ac-cepted that shipping and maritime train-ing could be more effi cient, more eff ec-tive and more engaging. What is lacking is the type of technology and connectiv-ity-led innovations which gamifi cation appears to deliver—for both operational and managerial/leadership skills.

“Whatever the barriers to adoption, the eff ectiveness of serious games for learning cannot be overlooked,” con-cludes the Use of Serious Games in the Corporate Sector report. “Th ey can impact learning engagement and motivation in a way that no other mode of training delivery can and eff ectively address the current challenges in corporate training where employees are no longer engaging with traditional forms of training includ-ing eLearning.”

With that kind of potential, shipping needs some serious playtime.

Gamification offers constant, engaging and easily monitored training with measurable competency outcomes.



p o s i d o n i a 2 0 1 4

The Sentient Ship, The Cyborg Crew, Shipistics and

Business e-volution, join us for Futurenautics LIVE at

the year’s biggest shipping event—Posidonia 2014.

Register for your FREE seat at one of the hottest events of the year where shipping’s

technology-enabled future comes to life. From nanotechnology to big data, the

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Gadgets

Making a spectacle of yourself: Google Glass (inset) and,modelled by a typical shipping executive.

Google GlassWhen does a gadget qualify as breakthrough tech? Th at’s well above our pay-grade but one

thing is for certain, the lines are so blurred now as to almost have disappeared alto-gether.

Some of what you’ll see here we’ve already referenced elsewhere in Futurenautics; some of it has major implications for mar-itime in terms of larger scale implementa-tion. Other stuff is just really, really cool.

Where we can we’ve included video on the futurenautics website so you can see these products in action, and if we think there’s a chance you can justify it to make your business life easier we’ll give you a reason.

If not, well, Christmas is coming.

Google Glass is probably the most signifi cant of the new wave of wearable tech products. In essence it is a wearable computer: a camera, display, touchpad, battery and microphone built into specta-cle frames so that you can see the display in your fi eld of vision, fi lm, take pictures, search and translate on the go.

A prism screen with—according to Google—a display “the equivalent of a 25-inch high defi nition screen from eight feet away” appears projected in front of your eyes and you control data with a mi-crophone and touchpad on one arm of the frame. Talking or small gestures will acti-vate the device which will interpret your

commands. Bone-induction technology vibrates your skull to create sound, remov-ing the need for traditional headphones.

Consumer versions of Google Glass are due to ship by early 2014 at the latest, in a host of funky colours and predicted to cost as little as $249 although there has been no word from Google confi rming pricing as we go to press. You may decide you’d like this undoubtedly revolutionary piece of consumer tech, but the real sig-nifi cance goes far deeper than that.

Overlaying data into your vision has obvious benefi ts, as any function that re-quires you to look at a screen could be put in front of you. In environments where situational awareness is as important as interacting with mission-critical data, Google Glass should be the catalyst for the convergence of both.

Read Sentient Ship and Cyborg Crew for more about that and imagine the pos-sibilities for safer bridge operations, par-ticularly if combined with ECDIS.

from: Google. price tbc

Images credit © Google


The Gyration Air Mouse

Working both on the desk-top and in the air the Gyration Air Mouse’s

MotionTools software recognizes your gestures and uses your hand movements to control applications and activate tools for interacting with your content and en-ergising presentations.

A simple, intuitive interface lets you take complete control of your content and applications from the comfort of your desk or across the room utilising long-range RF technology that works at a range of up to 100 feet, without line-of-sight limitations.

Th e Air Mouse turns your natural wrist movements into functions, letting you highlight text, fl ick between screens, zoom in and out as well as easily browsing the web and controlling media content.

from: Gyration. Around $70

These new sci-fi materials aren’t just destined for ships and aeroplanes: the Tech 21

basecase uses Impactology™ to deliver a unique, new level of protection for mo-bile devices, tablets and laptops.

In everyday use the molecules inside the revolutionary D3O® Impact Mate-rial fl ow freely, but upon shock or im-pact they lock together - absorbing the impact force and spreading the shock evenly across the surface of the material, meaning your device stays in one piece, no matter how hard the impact.

What makes Impactology™ unique is the D3O® Impact Material composed of a non-Newtonian polymer with an in-telligent molecular structure which, the makers claim, has been adopted world-wide by the military for its power in im-pact protection on the battlefi eld.

Cool.

from: Tech21. Around $30

k , ,

Tech21 Base Case

Images credi © Tech21


Tile

Bowers & Wilkins Headphones

OK, so you’ve invested in weapons-grade impact pro-tection for your iPad, but

that’s no use when you can’t remember where you put it.

Help is at hand from Tile, a Blue-tooth-enabled tag designed to be at-tached to valuable items—phones, keys,

teenage children, LNG carriers (not the LNG carriers-Ed)—allowing you to lo-cate them when they go missing. Using the accompanying Tile app you can see when you’re getting warm – within a 50 to 150-foot range, and the built-in Tile speaker will make a sound when you get close enough.

Th e Tile comes with a double-sided adhesive which reportedly allows you to stick it to most anything you choose and the app is compatible with iPhone 4S,

iPhone 5, iPad Mini, third- and fourth-generation iPads and the newest version of the iPod Touch.

A single Tile will cost $18.95 and up to 12 can be purchased for $170.55, al-though a maximum of 10 Tiles can be registered per account. Th e company has started taking pre-orders and expects to start shipping sometime this winter.

from: Tile. price From $18.95

For anyone who spends time in a cab-in – be that aeroplane or ship – the Bower and Wilkins P3 is an elegant

solution to pristine audio performance. Th ese slimline headphones fi t lightly and snugly on your head, and fold up to stow away in your pocket or their own hard-shell carry case. And they produce a remarkably natural, detailed sound on the move, thanks to some major technological innovations that reduce distor-tion to a minimum.

According to B&W the P3’s drive units have been designed from the ground up, in-cluding repositioning the terminals to make sure that airfl ow around the drive units is uni-form, resulting in a more linear movement and the introduction of a unique damping system that provides the optimum balance of stiff ness and fl exibility, in order to give the best possible sound from a small set of headphones.

Sounds good? Treat yourself.

from: Bowers & Wilkins price around $240

A Bluetooth-enabled tag designed to be attached to valuable items-phones, keys, teenage children-not suitable for LNG carriers.


Ubi Interactive

Ever imagined being able to project your screen onto any surface and control it simply

by tapping on the projected image? Im-agine no longer because this truly futur-istic piece of tech is already available.

Seattle-based start-up Ubi Inter-active has incorporated Microsoft’s motion-sensing Kinect technology into a package which only requires hard-ware that many users are already likely to have. It can be as simple as running the programme on a computer attached to a projector and the Windows Kinect

sensor. According to those who have used it the software is slick—able to respond to nuanced gestures like a swipe versus a click—despite the scale of the image you’re interacting with.

Th e software itself ranges in price from $149 to $1499 and went on sale in August. A Kinect sensor can be pur-chased for about $250. Ubi Interactive has already delivered the technology into some larger Fortune 500 fi rms’ confer-ence rooms.

“We want human collaboration and information to be just one fi nger touch

away, no matter where you are,” Ubi co-founder and chief executive Anup Chatoth says. “By making it possible to turn any surface into a touch screen, we eliminate the need for screen hardware and thereby reduce the cost and extend the possibilities of enabling interactive displays in places where they were not previously feasible, such as on walls in public spaces.”

And ship’s bridges, Masters’ cabins, engine room walls...? See the tech in ac-tion on the Futurenautics website.

from: Ubi Interactive. Software $149 to $1499. Kinect sensor $250.

“We want human collaboration and information to be just one finger touch away, no matter where you are,” Ubi Interactive makes any surface into an interactive screen.

Image credit © Chao Zhang


...and finally NYMI from Bionym

Of all the tech we’ve talked about as we’ve put together this fi rst issue of Futurenau-

tics, the Nymi from Bionym makes peo-ple stop in their tracks. Bionym are a team aiming to shape the world of technology through biometrics, authentication tech-nology and wearable tech which also uti-lises gesture control, proximity detection and application development.

Th eir fi rst product, the Nymi, is an im-pressive start. Th e Nymi uses your unique electrocardiogram (ECG) to authenticate your identity through an embedded sen-sor. It then uses Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate your identity to all of your

devices, bypassing any verifi cation obsta-cles. It’s a personalized solution that al-lows the user to avoid the endless stream of prompts, passwords, PINs and locks to access all your devices seamlessly.

Th e Nymi also has motion sensing and proximity detection that allows users to perform remote, gesture-specifi c com-mands, creating a dynamic and interactive environment. A simple twist of the wrist can unlock your car door.

You can watch this astonishing tech-nology in action on the Futurenautics website, and as you do keep in your mind the commercial applications for shipping and maritime of this kind of technology.

For more make sure you read Th e Sentient Ship and Th e Cyborg Crew. Bionym are ac-tively looking for developers to take this technology and apply it in diff erent sec-tors and verticals. With the potential to use it for everything from a hotel key to a payment device we’re hoping someone in shipping is going to get excited and get in touch.

In the meantime Bionym are taking pre-orders for the Nymi right now for the frankly incredible price of $79. And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is what is known as a ‘no-brainer’.

from: Bionym. Price: $79

Images credit © Bionym


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Generously sponsored by SingTel, a key player in the HTS space, this roundta-ble is by invitation-only, as is the small audience.

If you would like to take part in either call the panel moderator Futurenautics Publisher Roger Adamson, or send an email to register your interest now to [email protected]

Members of the Futurenautics Execu-tive Panel will automatically receive an invitation to this event.

High throughput satellites are a key facilitator of shipping’s technology-enabled future, delivering the capacity ship operators need to capitalise upon trends like big data, M2M and new business and service models.

But what does that mean in practice? Exactly what are these new systems? How are they being approached and specifi ed and where are the key oppor-tunities to use them to unlock immedi-ate value?As part of the Futurenautics 2014 Roundtable series we’re bringing to-gether the most senior of Ship Opera-tors, stakeholders, fi nanciers and crew in the maritime city of Hamburg where we’ll pull the subject of HTS apart and put it back together.

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