The second phase of the Trade & Transport Impact Programme, a maritime and transport start-up initiative backed by Inmarsat, Cargotec, Shell, HHLA and Wärtsilä, is now underway, with applications to be one of the 10 companies to join the programme currently being accepted.
The Trade & Transport Impact Programme aims to address real challenges existing within maritime trade and transportation by matching established companies with tech start-ups and scale-ups, to allow them to work together in a collaborative manner and benefit from each other’s relative skill sets in bringing new ideas to fruition.
“We know that Inmarsat can’t do this alone and we also know that the maritime industry is in the initial stages of digitalisation with a huge opportunity for collaboration in front of us,” said Alison Grey, Senior Director of Digital Incubation at Inmarsat.
“That transformation will not be achieved by any one player in the industry. It’s going to take large corporates, who own a significant part of the value chain, to get together with other corporates and work with smaller businesses as catalysts to make this happen.”
The first cycle of the programme, which ran in the spring of 2019, resulted in the creation of 11 pilot-projects between the eight selected start-ups and their partner corporations. The second cycle will now search for 10 new start-ups to expand the work done to date.
Innovation accelerator Rainmaking will manage the selection process, and says it expects more than 500 start-ups with relevant technology and business models to have been identified by the application deadline on September 8th, 2019.
Once the application process is closed the start-ups will be screened and the 10 teams will be invited for Selection Days in Hamburg before being matched with their partners. The new teams’ ongoing work will be facilitated by Rainmaking during a six-week semi-remote programme focused on building collaborative pilot-projects.
“We are excited to be part of this unique programme. Within the Trade & Transport Impact Programme by Rainmaking, so many complementary partners across the maritime value chain and start-ups are teaming up,” said Joonas Makkonen, Vice President Voyage Solutions at Wärtsilä.
“This provides an outstanding playground to access, test and pilot opportunities. Our goal is to explore new business models for digital solutions for the maritime industry – and above all, scale fast together with the start-ups.”
