Mare Straetmans is currently the managing director of PortXL, the World Port Accelerator. The Port of Rotterdam is the innovation hub for port business around the world. PortXL is aiming to develop an ecosystem for port startups worldwide. PortXL focusses on scouting the best startups, and bring them to Rotterdam for three months, to find their first clients. This way building the port business of the future.

Windward is a maritime data and analytics company that offers specialized data and services to government agencies and private corporations. We collect and analyze over 200 million data points per day. We convert this massive amount of data into information that our clients can act on, in real time. The Windward team, 75 and growing, is comprised of data scientists and shipping experts who work together to shed light on what’s really happening at sea.

Ports, terminals, infrastructural projects, and economic forecasts are some of the topics covered in this interview with Paul Valery Spallino, Trade and Sales Manager (Italy) Seago Line, a company of the Maersk Group specialized in intra-Europe trade, which includes the areas of Mediterranean and Black Sea.

One of the most sophisticated and cutting-edge sectors in innovation and international competitiveness is logistics. The interview with the CEO of the Italian branch of BLG Logistics Solutions, a multinational company operating in this industry, demonstrates the growing use of sustainable logistics to expand the competitiveness of enterprises.

SRM in collaboration with SOS-Log, interviewed Alberto Rosotto, Business Development & Accounts Manager of SKF Logistics Services Italy, a major international player in industrial logistics operating in 40 sectors. This interview focuses on logistics and especially on logistics sustainability.

In Italy, when talking about ports, usually one lingers on the territory where the port authority is located, failing to analyze in depth the surrounding and smaller ports which are nevertheless important on a strategic and economic point of view. One of these realities is the third port of Campania, the Port of Torre Annunziata, which is also internationally oriented. This and other topics were discussed with Giuseppe Rocco, General Director of SOLACEM Spa, a company of integrated port logistics, operating since 1967 in the port of Torre Annunziata, more specifically in the fields of debarking operations, the handling of cereals and flours and of their distribution in the south of Italy and in the Mediterranean in general.

In 2015, SRM carried out a scientific mission in Hamburg with the aim of gaining a better knowledge of the strategies and the issues regarding the maritime sector in a country like Germany, which is considered one of the top European countries as for maritime logistics. During the mission, SRM interviewed top players in the industry like Dirk Max Johns, Managing Director of VDR (Verband Deutscher Reeder), the industry association representing the German shipowners.