Plug and Play Launches Maritime Innovation Platform in Antwerp, Belgium

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Apr 22, 2021, 04:00 ET

ANTWERP, Belgium, April 22, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Global innovation platform, Plug and Play, together with Founding Partners City of Antwerp, CMB, DXC Technology, Euronav, and Port of Antwerp, has announced the launch of their first maritime program in Antwerp, Belgium. The purpose of the program is to connect international startups with the Founding Partners to pilot their technologies and drive the future of maritime as world-class leaders of R&D and innovation.

Startup collaboration at the local and global level

Led by a local team of four people, Plug and Play Maritime aims to strengthen an innovative startup ecosystem centered around the seafaring sector, that brings new technologies and entrepreneurs to the region and enables technological and business development. Plug and Play Maritime will be situated at the pre-campus of Maritime Campus Antwerp. The launch event, which will mark the start of the first program batch, is planned for June 2021.

"The launching of our first maritime platform in Antwerp represents the beginning of a new 'voyage' for us at Plug and Play. We are eager to support our founding partners and the existing local innovation community through our global ecosystem, by means of impactful startup-corporate collaboration," says Saeed Amidi, Founder and CEO of Plug and Play.

"With Plug and Play, the City of Antwerp and Port of Antwerp strengthen their position as innovation leaders in the international maritime business. The city wants to be part of the European top of scale-up cities by 2025. We take a lot of initiatives in our growth clusters: digital and circular economy. The City and the Port work closely together in the digital innovation hub The Beacon. With Plug and Play this collaboration gets a new dimension. We are confident that thanks to this new initiative, Plug and Play Maritime, we will be able to accelerate our joined ambitions," shares Claude Marinower, Vice-Mayor for Economy, Industry and Innovation, City of Antwerp.

Open Innovation enables tech that will shape the future of Maritime

Antwerp, home to the second largest port in Europe, is a hub for the maritime industry with a longstanding tradition. With its headquarters in Silicon Valley, Plug and Play's expansion into this sector will provide an opportunity for the five Founding Partners to increase their innovation activities with access to a network of over 30,000 global startups. Initial technology areas for scouting will include clean fuels and energy, big data and Internet of Things, future logistics, efficient shipping, autonomous vessels, sensors, and more. By providing innovation-as-a-service, this platform will also play a strategic role for the partners in pioneering a sustainable maritime industry of the future throughout Belgium and around the world.

Further offerings for startups, partners, and the growing ecosystem include business development, dealflows, workshops, weekly mentorship sessions, networking between partners, investment opportunities, and a series of monthly events including, Selection Days, Innovation Days, and EXPO Days. Plug and Play Maritime will run local operations from the pre-campus of Maritime Campus Antwerp, a co-working space for startups to utilize and scale their business.

"For the moment we have world class ports like the Port of Antwerp and a world class maritime industry in our country. To maintain our position, we need to look and think ahead," comments Alexander Saverys, CEO of CMB. "Joining forces with partners creates scale in know-how and competencies resulting in R&D and innovation. This will help us to stay on top of new evolutions in the industry. Plug and Play, together with our Maritime Campus Antwerp, will help us to support our ambitions."

"The fundamental idea of the Maritime Campus Antwerp is to create scale and combine forces among those maritime players and stakeholders that want to tackle the huge innovation challenges for the maritime industry in the decades to come. The Plug and Play Maritime platform will contribute to the Maritime Campus Antwerp ecosystem by bringing the best startups and early scale-ups from all over the world to Antwerp to accelerate the introduction of maritime tech for our corporate partners," says Bart Huybrechts, Managing Director, Maritime Campus Antwerp.

Plug and Play Maritime offers a wide range of services to entrepreneurs

The basis of Plug and Play Maritime will be the 12-week open innovation program, run twice a year. Each program welcomes 20+ selected international startups that are addressing the specific technological needs of the Founding Partners. The startups and business units of the partners will work together on pilots and proof of concepts, leading towards production-ready implementations. The goal is to have at least one joint project completed for each startup, to be showcased at EXPO Day, the final event at the end of each program.

"Innovation can play a key role in making the future and prosperity of the port of Antwerp sustainable. The ecosystem represented by the Antwerp port platform is an ideal testbed for technology on a large scale. With Plug and Play Maritime we can live up to this ambition and play a pioneering role as a port of the future. In this way we seek to be a source of inspiration and to set an example for other ports. " explains Annick De Ridder, Vice Mayor of the Port of Antwerp.

"The Plug and Play platform will enable us to leverage our R&D capabilities and set up structural collaborations with start-ups and the wider ecosystem to drive mutual growth and benefits. We must invest in new technologies to further digitalise our Industry but also to make shipping cleaner and more efficient," states Hugo De Stoop, CEO of Euronav. "This is at the heart of our sustainability program to ensure our future relevance and competitiveness. Engaging in innovative ecosystems such as that of Plug and Play, together with the founding partners, is critical to achieve our long-term ambitions."

Founding Partners provide expertise and a vision of sustainable innovation

The consortium of Founding Partners consists of a distinctive blend of expertise and functions within the maritime sector, which will provide high value for startups looking to bring their technologies directly to key stakeholders in the industry.

"Collaborating with the Plug and Play network of startups will enable us to explore bleeding-edge innovations and how to integrate with our offerings across the Enterprise Technology Stack so we can deliver opportunities for our customers at lower cost and greater speed. We are proud to bring the capabilities of DXC to help incubated startups deploy their solution at scale, particularly in the areas of supply chain and logistics. Partnering with Plug and Play underlines our focus on our people and on our customers, associating our transformation to the 'new DXC' with the values of collaboration and value-led innovation," says Frederic Hertogs, Managing Director, DXC Technology, Belgium. 

"As one of the leading ports in the world, Antwerp aspires to be the 'port of the future'. We use innovation as a lever to turn today's major challenges such as energy transition, digitalisation, and mobility into solutions. Through collaboration and implementing technologies such as big data, IoT, smart shipping, and future logistics, we are making our port smarter and more efficient. I believe that Plug and Play Maritime is an important milestone in bringing our port to the next international level and positioning it as a leading innovation platform," explains Jacques Vandermeiren, CEO, Port of Antwerp.

Corporations, startups, investors, and other industry leaders interested in getting involved, please visit the website or get in touch with David Neef: [email protected]

About Plug and Play
Plug and Play is the leading innovation platform, connecting startups, corporations, venture capital firms, universities, and government agencies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, we're present in 35+ locations across 5 continents. We offer corporate innovation programs and help our corporate partners in every stage of their innovation journey, from education to execution. We also organize startup acceleration programs and have built an in-house VC to drive innovation across multiple industries where we've invested in hundreds of successful companies including Dropbox, Guardant Health, Honey, Lending Club, N26, PayPal, and Rappi. For more information, visit www.plugandplaytechcenter.com.

Press Contact: David Neef
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +49 160 6808115

About the City of Antwerp
The city of Antwerp brings together the best the world has to offer: it is home to a world-class port and its international trade opportunities; it is the cultural capital of Flanders and a strong creative sector with a long tradition in design. Antwerp has been and is firmly committed to stimulating ecosystems by bringing together capital, companies and knowledge institutions in the fields of digital innovation, sustainable chemistry and creative industries. These powerful ecosystems develop innovations for traditional business clusters such as the port, the chemical industry, and by helping to achieve successes in fields such as mobility, health and safety. This solid foundation together with strong ambitions and an open innovation culture, make Antwerp the ideal starting point for innovative companies. For more information, visit www.businessinantwerp.eu.

Press Contact: Magalie Verstraelen
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 487 67 87 03

About CMB
CMB is a diversified shipping and logistics group based in Antwerp, Belgium. CMB owns and operates 139 sea-going ships in dry bulk (Bocimar), container transport (Delphis), chemical tankers (Bochem) & crew transfer vessels (Windcat Workboats). CMB is also involved in cleantech (CMB.TECH) and real estate (Reslea, Maritime Campus Antwerp). CMB has offices in Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Hamburg and London. For more information, visit www.cmb.be.

Press Contact: Katrien Hennin
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 499 39 34 70

About DXC Technology
DXC Technology (NYSE: DXC) helps global companies run their mission critical systems and operations while modernizing IT, optimizing data architectures, and ensuring security and scalability across public, private and hybrid clouds. With decades of driving innovation, the world's largest companies trust DXC to deploy our enterprise technology stack to deliver new levels of performance, competitiveness and customer experiences. Learn more about the DXC story and our focus on people, customers and operational execution at www.dxc.technology.

Press Contact: Antonio Carril
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 476 22 85 87

About Euronav
Euronav is an independent tanker company engaged in the ocean transportation and storage of crude oil. The Company is headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium, and has offices throughout Europe and Asia. Euronav is listed on Euronext Brussels and on the NYSE under the symbol EURN. Euronav employs its fleet both on the spot and period market. VLCCs on the spot market are traded in the Tankers International pool of which Euronav is one of the major partners. Euronav's owned and operated fleet consists of 2 V-Plus vessels, 45 VLCCs, 28 Suezmaxes (one of which is in a joint venture and two vessels time chartered in and two to be delivered) and 2 FSO vessels (both owned in 50%-50% joint venture). For more information, visit www.euronav.com.

Press Contact: Ilse Derijck
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 472 73 04 84

About Maritime Campus Antwerp (MCA)
MCA is a "do" campus and ecosystem where business, technology and knowledge are linked to strengthen and develop the maritime sector. The aim of MCA is to connect entrepreneurs who develop sustainable and water-related businesses. MCA ecosystem is broad and focuses on joining forces between the various actors in the broad maritime sector at European level. In addition, the MCA Campus will become a lively new hotspot of Antwerp with cultural activities and catering establishments. MCA is an initiative of CMB. For more information, visit www.maritimecampusantwerp.com.

Press Contact: Katrien Hennin
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 499 39 34 70

About Port of Antwerp
As Europe's second-largest port, the Port of Antwerp is a major lifeline for the Belgian economy: more than 300 line services to over 800 destinations ensure global connectivity. The Port of Antwerp annually handles around 231 million tonnes of international maritime freight, and is home to Europe's largest integrated chemical cluster. The Port of Antwerp accounts, directly and indirectly, for a total of around 143.000 jobs and more than €20 billion added value. True to its mission 'a home port vital for a sustainable future', Antwerp Port Authority aims to flexibly respond to a rapidly evolving maritime market, allowing the port to continue playing its role as a leading world port. The emphasis in this respect is on cooperation, adaptability, a strong focus on innovation and digitisation, and on sustainable added value, as well as on responsibility towards society. For more information, visit https://www.portofantwerp.com.

Press Contact: Lennart Verstappen
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +32 473 920 414

SOURCE Plug and Play