A Wärtsilä team named ‘Blue Carbon’ has been announced as the winner of the United Nations’ AIS Big Data Hackathon, having developed a model for attributing the CO2 emissions from vessels to the geographical location of ships based on their AIS (Automatic Identification System) locations.
The event took place in early September 2020 and featured selected teams from 17 organisations, with Wärtsilä the only corporate entry to have been accepted. The remaining participants were teams from research institutes and universities.
The hackathon was aimed at developing innovative and viable means for utilising Big Data to combat either the Covid-19 pandemic or climate change.
The Blue Carbon AIS tracking model supports the creation of a global map, identifying both the geographical concentrations and the build-up over time of CO2 emissions from shipping. The company says that this model would allow environmental policy to be based on factual evidence, enabling greater input from national and regional authorities to support IMO’s regulatory efforts.
“Combating climate change is both a challenge and an obligation for us as a global corporation, and we are proud to play our part,” said Thomas Dewilde, Blue Carbon team member and Manager, Cyber Governance, Risk & Assurance, Wärtsilä.
The event was jointly organised by the United Nations Statistics Division, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the UN Global Pulse. The winning Blue Carbon team will attend the UN World Data Forum in Bern, Switzerland in 2021 to present their work and receive the award.
