Technologies related to the sea highlight INESC TEC at Business2Sea
The Business2Sea - Sea Forum 2018 was held between 14 and 16 November at the Alfandega Porto Congress Centre and had an inclusive participation of INESC TEC both at seminars and workshops, and at the exhibition area.
With the theme “2030 Sea Challenges”, the event presented a diversified programme dedicated to the treatment and debate of a set of technological, environmental, social and economic challenges that the different stakeholders of the maritime economy will have to face during the next decade. It included seminars, workshops, a Conference commemorating the National Day of the Sea, a Programme of Business Meetings, pitches organised by the “Curtas de Mar” programme, an exhibition component and also some pedagogic and entertainment moments on the maritime culture and oceans literacy.
Conferences, workshops, meetings
On the first day, two INESC TEC collaborators participated in the discussion panel of the workshop entitled “Ports and Smart Cities Seminar”, namely António Gaspar, coordinator of the Centre for Information Systems and Computer Graphics (CSIG) and Augustin Olivier, as Member of the Executive Board of the National Cluster TICE.PT and responsible for the Industry Partnership Service (SAPE).
Carlos Pinho, also collaborator of SAPE, was one of the attendees of the conference “Competences and employability: the relation between Academia and Industry” that also took place on the first day, 14 November.
The workshop “Atlantic Area and Portugal-Galicia Cooperation “, in which Vladimiro Miranda, Consultant to INESC TEC’s Board was a speaker, took place on 15 November.
The workshop of the project SpiLess: First-line response to oil spills based on native microorganisms cooperation -, which also took place on the 15th, was organised by CIIMAR and had the participation of speakers in the Biotechnology, Robotics, Marine Pollution, Port Management and Risk Management fields. The drone developed by INESC TEC for this project was on display in this workshop.
Under the project SIDENAV: Smart infrastructure for deep sea navigation, INESC TEC was also involved in the organisation of the conference “Strongmar: A Sea of Innovation”, which took place on 16 November.
Finally, the closing session of the event entitled “2030 Sea Challenges Conference and Portuguese Maritime Day Celebration”, which took place on 16 November, had the participation of the Chaiman of INESC TEC, José Manuel Mendonça in the discussion panel on technological trends and consequences for the marine economy and the role of the Sea in the next European funds programme.
Exhibition, curtas and tasting session
A group of institutions had the opportunity to integrate an exhibition of goods, products, services, technologies and projects related to the sea in the Infante Hall of the Alfandega Porto Congress Centre, which was open to the public free of charge during the three days of the Forum. This area also counted in particular with the visit of Ruben Eiras, Director General of Maritime Policy of the Ministry of the Sea, who therefore had a deeper knowledge of the work developed by INESC TEC for the area of the Sea.
A joint exhibition space between INESC TEC and CIIMAR demonstrated some of the main results obtained in the project CORAL - Sustainable Ocean Exploitation: Tools and Sensors, a joint project composed by two research lines (BLUETOOLS and BLUE SENSORS), which, despite having different approaches, are interconnected in order to enhance integrated and diffusing gains.
The CORAL project defined the sustainable exploration of marine resources as its main goal, in order to meet the needs of society and to propose solutions based on deepwater challenges. Such challenge entailed an increase in knowledge of the natural processes that govern ocean dynamics and ecosystem functions, as well as the key forces that boost change in ecosystems, both regionally and globally.
As debutants, the highlight goes to the Centre for Power and Energy Systems with its “Energy Storage & Management” tool for the planning of autonomous vehicle missions and for the TEC4SEA infrastructure, which is in its implementation phase.
At the stand, the drone of the ROSM project (Robotic Oil Spill Mitigation) was also present. The drone, which was developed in partnership with the School of Engineering of Porto (ISEP), is a system that increases the speed of response in the control and protection of the marine environments in case of accidents.
Throughout the days of the event, there were also in this same space a series of "Curtas do Mar", a kind of pitches about institutions, projects or activities related to the sea. Docapesca and Anfaco also provided tasting sessions of delicacies made with fish and seafood on the three days of the event.
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with INESC TEC and UP-FEUP.
