Valenciaport Cluster Innovation Committee to redesign its working groups

The meeting, led by the Fundación Valenciaport, was held yesterday afternoon with the participation of representatives of the Port Authority of Valencia and the companies Cosco, Baleària, APM Terminals, Transbase Soler, MSC and CSP Spain.

During the session, the objectives and main activities of two important port innovation hubs were presented: Homeport, from the port of Hamburg and PIER, from the port of Halifax.

Valencia, 19 July 2023. – A new session of the Valenciaport Cluster Innovation Committee took place yesterday afternoon. The meeting, led by the Fundación Valenciaport, was attended by representatives of the Port Authority of Valencia and the companies Cosco, Baleària, APM Terminals, Transbase Soler, MSC and CSP Spain.

First of all, the Deputy Director of the Fundación Valenciaport, Salvador Furió, reviewed the evolution and results of the four working groups that are currently underway within the framework of the Innovation Committee, “thanks to which interesting innovation projects have been promoted”, as he commented. As a result of the work of the “Integral traceability of containers and equipment” group, the ASIGNAT project was launched; in the group on “Access control to the port, terminals and inland warehouses” the VIGIA project was promoted; in the group on “Planning and Optimisation of Maritime-Port Operations” the development of the PAULA (Platform for AUtomatically Linking Agents) data exchange platform was facilitated; and in the group on “Evolution towards a zero emissions operating model” the GREEN C PORTS project was developed. Furió also commented that these groups will soon be redesigned to adapt them to the new Innovation Plan of the Valenciaport cluster presented at the end of last year.

Another highlight of the meeting was the participation of the representatives of the ports of Hamburg and Halifax, Phanthian Zuesongdham and Ryan Grant, respectively, who connected online and explained to those present the objective and main activities of their respective innovation hubs, Homeport and PIER.

The session was also used to present the results of some relevant projects led by the Fundación Valenciaport. The director of Port Logistics, José A. Giménez, presented the iTerminals project, an initiative that will facilitate the adoption of 4.0 technologies in the port sector; and the director of Digital Transformation, Miguel Llop, spoke about different projects in which artificial intelligence began to be applied in the sector, such as Ingenious, E2RM or Planet.

Finally, new activities and initiatives of interest to the Committee members were presented. In this section, Eva Pérez, Director of Innovation Promotion at the Fundación Valenciaport, informed the participants of the upcoming launch of a new office/service for the promotion and financing of innovation for cluster companies. For his part, Pablo Palomo, Head of Projects at the Fundación Valenciaport, presented the new calls for the Ports 4.0 Programme, scheduled for the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024. Finally, Salvador Furió summarised the latest activities developed by Opentop – Valenciaport’s open innovation hub – such as the 3rd edition of the Valenciaport Hackathon or the Startup Acceleration Programme; as well as those planned for the coming months, such as the Demo Day of the Acceleration Programme, an event to be held on 28 September, or the upcoming participation of Opentop in the Valencia Digital Summit, where according to Furió “we are preparing a great one-day event, focused as always on open innovation in the port logistics sector”.

Valenciaport Cluster Innovation Committee

It should be remembered that the Innovation Committee came about as a result of the development and implementation of the R&D&I Plan of the Port of Valencia Logistics Community, an initiative led by the Fundación Valenciaport and supported by the Port Authority of Valencia (APV) and the Valencia Innovation Agency (AVI).

This project was launched as a strategic tool to promote the innovation priorities of the companies that make up the Valenciaport port community, identifying and analysing the most relevant trends that will condition competitiveness in the sector and proposing lines of action in R&D&I aimed at the challenges posed in the short, medium and long term.