10 startups and corporate partners are all set for the first Bootcamp of Maritime Accelerator. The goal for the two day trial is to evaluate potential partnerships and joint opportunities and find out which of the chosen startups will continue collaboration with their partner corporation.
Teams from Delta Cygni Labs, Hema Imaging LLC and WH Monitoring are all excited to take concrete steps together with the corporate partners and deep dive to their business challenges. Marko Kuula from Delta Cygni Labs says that they want to be a strategic partner in the maritime ecosystem and help in several processes. Kuula sees big potential in startup-corporate collaboration: ”Cooperation like this brings together the powerful corporations with huge businesses and established networks with the agility and cutting-edge technology of the startups. This allows co-creation and development with the partners. It is truly match made in heaven.”
Eric Beall from Hema Imaging is looking forward to discover together what problems their partner is trying to solve and see where Hema Imaging’s technology and expertise fit. “Predictive maintenance is becoming more important, especially when it comes to preventing costly downtime or safety risks, and nondestructive testing techniques can be essential for discovering issues before they happen. Advance warning of problems is crucial for ships at sea if the tools or parts needed are not readily available.”, Beall adds.
Edgar Grant from WH Monitoring says that they really want to discuss about at least one particular ‘pain’ that their solution will solve more effectively than any other method. “WH Monitoring is focusing on very specific niche of vibration monitoring and analysis. We are really good at that. We will demonstrate the technology and shape the end product to fit our partner’s needs at most.”, Grant summarises.
Open innovation is the modern way to collaborate
When talking about the global benefits of open innovation and corporate venturing the entrepreneurs couldn’t agree more. “We strongly believe that collaboration models like this are very beneficial for the society. Corporations have accumulated rich knowledge and experience which are often kept internally. However, these can be merged with the innovative ideas of a start-up company, who are hungry for practical experience. When working independently, startups are either spending investors’ monies re-inventing the wheel or the corporations do not fully utilise their tremendous potential, which is not inefficient. On the other hand, during collaboration the both parties could maximise the progress and bring value to the society just by using the existing resources in a better way. The only problem we see here is too big difference in weight: corporation could be too difficult for startup to negotiate and bargain, e.g. about exclusivity or scope of intellectual property rights.” Grant comments.
The future of the maritime ecosystem is in sustainable solutions, safety and efficiency
All entrepreneurs believe that the future of the maritime ecosystem is in cross industry collaboration and new technologies. The focus should be in sustainability, safety and customer satisfaction. “Maritime will surely keep its place in intercontinental transportation in the future. With remote collaboration tools the marine industry is able to find new and greener ways to deliver high level of service for their customers.”, Kuula points.
Grant believes that that in the future the marine vessels will have zero emissions and the marine industry will become carbon neutral and more efficient. “Of course, in order to achieve that, we expect that the new technologies will appear on the market which require innovation. We look forward to support these initiatives and will contribute in reducing costs, increasing efficiency and making the industry safe by using our method of reliable monitoring and predictive maintenance.” Grant comments.