The Blue NET – World Café event was organized under the EU-funded project Blue NET – Maritime Clusters Network for Blue Growth. The participating organization had the opportunity to share innovation needs and start networking for future cooperation.
At the end of the event, both experts and companies, after their presentations and networking, contributed to the definition of the finalized innovation paths. Those were: advanced infrastructure development, advanced manufacturing technology, software development, reduce environmental impact, energy efficiency system, advanced materials, and advance automation system.
The event took place on Thursday 14th of June 2018 at Sun Hall Hotel in Larnaca, Cyprus with the participation of selected enterprises and experts.
In an early stage, the role of the involvement of the experts was to support the project partners with their technical expertise in the development of the innovation paths and with their participation in the event, to support the matching of the enterprise’s need and, afterward contribute to the definition of the finalized innovation paths.
The ideal expert was selected as appropriate to provide valuable input for the purpose of the project based on their strong academic education and the development of professional competencies connected directly to deal with enterprises in the innovation and production chain.
The expert has developed these competencies at least in one of the following sectors (sub-sectors are also provided).
- Shipbuilding and boatbuilding: design, construction, maintenance and reparation, fittings, plants, and equipment
- Maritime transport: deep-sea shipping, short sea-shipping, passenger ferry services, inland waterway transport, logistics linked to waterborne transport, port activity
- Energy and raw materials: offshore oil and gas, offshore wind, ocean renewable energy, carbon capture, and storage, aggregate mining, marine minerals mining, securing freshwater supply
- Leisure, working and living: coastal tourism, yachting and marina services, cruise tourism
Although the expert experience was focused on one subsector, he/she was able to manage the whole sector topics. The expert knew: actual innovation and technological challenges, cutting-edge technologies, main manufacturing processes, innovative trends set by big players in the sector and throughout the value chains.
Below are the five experts have been selected for participating in the event, per sector:
- Mr. Alberto Moroso from Italy: Energy and Raw Materials & Shipbuilding and Boatbuilding
- Prof. Petar Georgiev from Bulgaria: Shipbuilding and Boatbuilding
- Prof. Izvor Grubisic from Croatia: Shipbuilding and Boatbuilding
- Mr. Constantinos Silitziotis from Cyprus: Maritime Transport
- Mrs. Brunilda Likaj from Albania: Leisure, Working and Living
From a total number of more than 100 companies that have participated in the project’s activities, 20 were selected to participate in this event.
The outcomes of this process from the filled questionnaires to the technological audits and the participation in the World Café can be listed below:
- the questionnaires highlighted common needs for the companies
- needs and competencies define a matching among SMEs, thus opportunities for collaboration are well defined
- innovation fields as identified, are the actual needs of the companies
- the identified innovation fields are common among participating countries
- some innovation fields are horizontal covering all maritime sectors
- a number of innovation needs are common among maritime sectors on a different scale i.e. shipbuilding to boatbuilding
- one of the main challenges is to find convenient funding to apply innovative solution