Digitalization plays a key role in the Finnish maritime cluster and harvesting its benefits effectively is a priority for the Government of Finland. In particular, in the area of the autonomous maritime system, By 2025, Finnish maritime industries will create an ecosystem for autonomous marine transport.
The objective of the ecosystem is to create the world’s first autonomous marine transport system to the Baltic Sea. The first pilots and applications in months to come are cargo ships and freight.
Key player include global leaders like Rolls Royce as well as numerous innovative information and communication technology (ICT) companies. About half of the ecosystem’s funding comes from Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation.
”This is an ambitious objective which can lead to new business. Tekes is willing to share risks with private sector by funding such an ecosystem. We welcome all innovators in the world to test their ides in Finland. We have the best platforms here”, comments Tekes’ senior advisor Rauli Hulkkonen.
Technology Industries Finland, which includes Finnish Marine Industries Association, says that the effort could create 100,000 new jobs in Finland.
According to Tekes program manager Pila Moilanen, combining Finland’s world class ICT start-up companies with strong maritime players will boost the exchange of ideas and create a pioneering community for in support of intelligent shipping.
In practice, the initiative will create a common roadmap for successful autonomous marine operations and enable effective co-operation and coordinated development between industry, research institutes, class societies and authorities. The roadmap creation and implementation is steered by a group of leading industry partners.
Key Leadership Roles
DIMECC Ltd acts as the system manager and is responsible for the achievement of effective co-operation and concrete objectives between the players. DIMECC is the leading co-creation platform with a target to speeds up time to market. DIMECC’s network consists of 2.000+ R&D&I professionals, 400+ organizations, 69 shareholders and 10+ co-creation facilitators. DIMECC’s shareholders contain the leading maritime, ICT and software companies.
”The industry created this idea and objective. There is increasing global competition on autonomy. We have to be quick. This is why we selected DIMECC to run and implement the ecosystem”, says Rolls-Royce Marine SVP Sauli Eloranta.
Tekes – the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation is the most important publicly funded expert organization for financing research, development and innovation in Finland.
