Conferences, kickoffs, and annual meetings; It’s been a hectic and social week in the Ocean Autonomy Cluster post covid. It seems that the pace of innovation is turning up a few knots after this week.
After two years in the home office and digital meetings, even the country’s technology optimists were happy to meet physically again under Trondheim Tech Port.
The program was packed with ocean space technology, health technology, and discussions about sustainability, entrepreneurship, and gender equality under the theme “bridging the gap”, introduced by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre.
The challenges of the world are becoming increasingly complex; Geopolitical unrest, energy crisis, climate change, and resource scarcity put great pressure on the pace of innovation and the ability to find new, sustainable solutions. Through the conference – and the expanded focus on the “Innovation District Trondheim Tech Port” – Trondheim marks international ambitions for the city’s research and innovation environment.
The capacity promise “Man in the sea operations of the future” (MIDAS) was kicked off this week. The research project, which has a total budget of NOK 36 million, is covered by eight NTNU institutes, three research centers, and three clusters that together represent over 150 member companies.
Over six years, MIDAS will build a collaborative platform between R&D and regional business with a focus on the human role in meeting autonomous systems, good design for intuitive and user-friendly interfaces, and business expertise in immature markets. The main goal is to create trust between humans and machines and strengthen the competitiveness of regional technology companies.
This week, work package leaders, partners, and clusters met for a kickoff and discussion about the important journey we will now start together.
Digitization and decarbonization are two important focus areas for Singapore’s maritime players, and these are also areas where Norway has significant solutions and technology to offer.
The Singapore Shipping Association (SSA) and the Norwegian maritime clusters met this week digitally to explore areas of common interest and potential for cooperation. During the event, Norwegian stakeholders learned more about the many challenges and focus areas for Singapore’s maritime industry related to technological innovation and development.
Ending a hectic week, the Ocean Autonomy Cluster was gathered for an annual meeting to reflect on what the cluster has achieved in the past year and what awaits in the coming year. Several large projects are being launched this spring, and both human factors in the design and flexible ferry solutions will take some focus in the coming year. In addition, the OAC wants to establish more meeting arenas, in addition to the annual Ocean Autonomy Conference in September.
The annual meeting also received a presentation on regional freight flow analysis; an important backdrop for how future logistics solutions and ocean space operations will be developed in the future.
Europe will be an even more important market for many of the cluster’s members in the years to come, and OAC is pleased to announce that this spring the cluster will have a dedicated EU adviser who will strengthen the export opportunities for Trøndelag’s maritime technology.