Following its successful introduction with an expert session for ports on cybersecurity that attracted visitors from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas as well as a well-attended Europe-Africa Regional session on decarbonisation and digitalization, the IAPH Harbor Café will open its doors again to its member guests, allowing them to informally join with a drink online and listen to two key trending topics of interest.

Hydrogen – a potential source of zero carbon power and vessel fuel

The first upcoming IAPH Harbor Café, which is being co-organised by the IAPH Europe and Africa Regions as a second bi-regional session on 24th June at 10hrs30 CEST, will include perspectives from port authorities and companies that enable the production and transport of renewable energy. Due to the great interest in energy transition in ports and decarbonisation of terminals, both the IAPH’s Europe Region under Vice President Jens Meier (CEO, Hamburg Port Authority) and Africa Region with newly appointed VP Michael Luguje (CEO of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority) have decided to focus on informing members on the opportunities hydrogen offers ports and their communities. Specific case studies will include the example of a port entering into a strategic upstream partnership to develop one of the largest green hydrogen plants in Europe, as well as another port entering into a memorandum of understanding with a well-established downstream provider to facilitate the large scale adoption of low emission transportation using hydrogen as a fuel.

Member ports, associate IAPH members or organizations interested in taking part may contact Ingrid Boqué of the Hamburg Port Authority for more information.

Ports as successful incubators for innovative startups

The second IAPH Harbor Café, which is being coordinated by the Data Collaboration Committee Innovation Workgroup, will feature two leading IAPH members ports in Europe and the Middle East which have experience in setting up innovation hubs in their ports with start-ups.

To cover the majority of world timezones, two sessions are being planned on the IAPH Harbor Café portal between 09hrs00 and 10hrs00 and between 17hrs00 and 18hrs00 CEST on Tuesday 12th July which will feature an explanation in the first half hour on how these ports set up organization, financing and recruited international innovators. The second half hour will feature start-ups themselves who will tell their story about how being part of the incubator allowed them to test their solution and develop their businesses. Among these examples will be cited of a system capable of detecting truck and container numbers while moving, a tracking system that performs automated 360 degree inspections of car shipments, a radar system that can detect the composition on MARPOL vessel residues and a cyber outfit capable of recovering port operation and IT systems within 30 seconds of a cyber attack.

Interested non-members of IAPH can contact our secretariat if they are interested in joining us for one of these IAPH Harbor Café sessions.
Source: International Association of Ports and Harbors