Rationale and Objectives
With the growing and changing demands of global trade, many ports across the world are increasingly faced with more difficult challenges. These include infrastructure limitations (and the associated need for optimization), limited handling capacity, and high OPEX, as well as the challenge of complying with more stringent regulations, man-power issues, and aspects of sustainability.
It is commonly known that the adoption of ICT technologies in the port sector addresses many of these challenges. However, the question arises as to how and when the sector can fully harness emerging ICT technologies to provide cost and time-effective management and monitoring solutions, customized to meet the specific business requirements of ports while catering for the maritime environment and fully complying with evolving regulations. The question has been partially addressed by some ports that have recently taken steps toward the digital transformation of their processes, based essentially on IoT, cloud computing, and renewable energy.
This event aims to highlight the experiences of some of these smart ports and the benefits achieved of such digitalization steps. Going beyond what has been achieved, the event brings speakers from different contexts and locations in the world to discuss the Smart Port view on the evolution of paradigms and roadmaps toward new approaches based on emerging technological trends such as 5G and Beyond, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, and Digital Twins. The program will highlight the different approaches taken in very different ports and very different stakeholders, and allow for a presentation of a very diverse set of views associated to the future of Smart Ports.