And the winner is?
The Maritime DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) Lab is an open innovation competition with the objective to find an idea which could have an impact on DEI in the maritime industry.
After receiving over 80 entries and subjecting seven teams to an intense 72-hour lab we are pleased to announce this year’s winner!
Kudos must go to ALL the teams who participated and represented more than 20 organisations. This year was especially challenging since we encouraged teams to work across organizational boundaries from the beginning. Easier said than done since some of the teams had time zone differences of 15 hours and, by having more seafarer entries, the teams needed to deal with connectivity and bandwidth restrictions.
Judgement was down to a panel of dragons comprising of senior leaders from the partner companies Hafnia, Anglo American, RightShip, Thome Group, Wilhelmsen and Rio Tinto. Using a combination of a points system as well as old fashioned debate they agreed on having two winners! SeaBuddy, a joint entry from RightShip and Seapeak, envisages a platform to allow individuals to connect with one another – this can be for comfort, it can be for mentoring, it can even be to show students, at first hand, what a career in maritime might look like. The platform idea extended to Colibri Maritime X; this concept, created by a team from Wilhelmsen Ahrenkiel Ship Management and Thome Group, whilst potentially challenging to implement could be a game changer. Watch this space to find out more!
Over the coming weeks we will be working with the winners to create a roadmap for validating their concept, developing a POC and seeking to prove (or not) their hypothesis. Now the work really starts!
From Shanker Pillai, Head of Innovation at Hafnia: “Today marks the final day of the 2022 Maritime DEI Lab. What is unique is that we are using innovation AND collaboration to drive tangible outcomes on complex topics such as DEI. We received a vast number of submissions from all over the world, from those onshore and at sea. Thank you to everyone who participated and thanks to our partners without whom this program wouldn’t have been a reality. Now the rubber hits the road as we bring the ideas to life and, hopefully, really make a difference!”
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