The Port Authority of the Algeciras Bay (APBA) participated, last Tuesday 18 October, in the cross-border technical conference Spain-Portugal which, under the title “Blue Innovation applied to the port ecosystem”, took place in Algeciras to discuss technology, innovation and sustainable development as an opportunity for the maritime-marine industry.
The meeting, held in the Millán Picazo Auditorium and organised by the Campus of International Excellence of the Sea, CEI-MAR, and the Marine Maritime Cluster of Andalusia, CMMA, is part of the actions planned in the European project Atlazul, to promote the blue economy and growth in Andalusia, Alentejo, Algarve and Galicia, of which both CMMA and CEI-MAR are partners.
The opening ceremony was chaired by the Vice-Chancellor of Science and Technology Policy of the UCA, María Jesús Mosquera, the General Coordinator of CEI-MAR, Darío Bernal, the President of CMMA, Javier Noriega, the Technical Advisor of the General Secretariat for External Action of the Andalusian Regional Government, Rocío Reinoso, the General Secretary for Sustainability, Environment and Blue Economy of the Andalusian Regional Government, María del Mar Plaza, and the President of the APBA, Gerardo Landaluce. The latter highlighted that “the Port of Algeciras is working to consolidate itself as a reference hub for energy, technology and innovation”.
Aftwerwards, the programme continued with the first conference by the Head of Innovation of Puertos del Estado, José Llorca, who spoke about the port innovation models in the country and presented the results obtained in the first calls of the Ports 4.0 Fund launched by Puertos del Estado. Next, it was the turn of the EU Policy Officer, Manuel Pleguezuelo, with his presentation entitled “Sustainable Blue Economy reference projects in European port ecosystems”, in which he spoke about various initiatives at national and international level, such as the European ASPBAN project, in which the APBA is actively participating and which aims to develop a platform of dynamic acceleration services for Atlantic ports to function as centres of the blue economy, thus diversifying their business models and sources of income.
The APBA, through the Head of the Technological Development Area, Jesús Medina, took part in the second round table, entitled “Innovation and transfer applied to the port area”, moderated by Javier Noriega, with the participation of the President of the Association of Service Companies of the Bay of Algeciras (AESBA), Manuel Piedra, the CTO of the Port Authority of Huelva, Manuel Francisco Martínez, the Managing Director of the Port of Sotogrande and member of Ports of the CMMA, Miguel Ángel Díez, the professor of the School of Engineering of Algeciras and vice-rector of the Campus Bahía de Algeciras, María del Mar Cerbán, and the Head of the Sustainability Department of the Port of Vigo and coordinator of Pillar II of Atlantic Area Ports of the European Commission, Carlos Botana, who in turn gave a lecture on the strategy and the roadmap that will be developed during the mandate that is now beginning.
During the course of the meeting, Medina highlighted the maturity of the Andalusian ports in terms of innovation and the importance of culture beyond the technology itself in its implementation. He also stressed the need to consider innovation as a systematic process, continuous over time and not only as a set of projects. Additionally, he also explained some of the latest initiatives developed by the APBA and in which disruptive technologies are being applied, such as the recent pilot for the detection of queues and prediction of waiting times at the accesses of the Port of Algeciras Bay through the use of artificial vision, aimed at providing quality information to truck drivers.
Previously, the conference included another round table entitled “From artificial intelligence and ports 4. 0 to zero emissions”, which was moderated by the coordinator of the Atlazul project at CEI-MAR, Juan Manuel Vidal, and included the interventions of the CMMA Technology and Commercial Development of Tecnoambiente, Francisco González, the Head of the Exploitation Area of the Andalusian Public Ports Agency (APPA), Francisco José Martínez, the head of the Intelligent Systems Modelling (MIS) research group of the Algeciras School of Engineering (ETSIA), Ignacio J. Turias, and the Managing Partner of Sanguino Abogados and Secretary General of the Andalusian Association of Environmental Businesswomen (ANSEMAC), Vanessa Villegas.
Finally, the programme concluded with the presentation of the II International Meeting on Blue Economy and Knowledge, Innovazul 2022, by María Jesús Mosquera, followed by a round table of conclusions and closure, with the participation of Javier Noriega, Juan Manuel Vidal and Gerardo Landaluce.
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