The hackathon „Portathon”, which invites to create advanced solutions for the ports of today and the future, will gather the international community of innovators this year from September 30 to October 2. The initiative was born in Klaipėda four years ago. The hackathon’s main base is in the lively port city of Lithuania, and international partners also get involved every year. This year, Portathon is expanding its wings even more by joining the European university alliance EU-CONEXUS.
The main thematic categories of challenges of „Portathon 2022” are logistics, energy, wellbeing/ sustainable environment of ports and port cities, cyber security.
Hackathon participants traditionally dedicate 48 hours to generating solutions. Several teams, whose presented solutions will be recognized as the best, will be awarded 1,000 EUR cash prizes.
The main organizers and leading core of „Portathon” is the Lithuanian Maritime Cluster, Klaipėda University, Klaipėda Science and Technology Park, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and Klaipėda State Seaport Authority. The latter organization became the first to present its challenges to hackathon teams this year.
Teams/ individual participants REGISTRATION : https://bit.ly/ParticipantsPortathon2022
Mentors REGISTRATION: https://bit.ly/MentorsPortathon2022
The list of challenges is being filled, so we invite you to follow the updates of our event in our website and social media: Facebook LinkedIn
Challenge registration is still open! Maritime businesses, public sector organizations can submit their challenges HERE
1. Synchronized traffic application
Klaipeda, as a maritime city, has been facing the challenge of adjusting freight transport and urban transport flows. Traffic is a source of air pollution and noise. Part of these negative consequences are caused by incoming, outgoing traffic to port (ferry operating on the principle of transit flow). The negative impact of traffic generated by the port on the population (air pollution, noise, traffic conflicts) is increasing accordingly. Addressing this challenge would eliminate the negative impact of port-generated traffic on the population and partially reduce the congestion on the city’s streets.
The goal is to create a synchronized traffic application after synchronizing the data of ferry operations in the port and the data of cargo movement from the port area with the intelligent city traffic management system.
The infrastructure of Klaipėda State Seaport transport service and operation of the Klaipėda city transport system consists of the whole network of Klaipėda accesses A1, A13, No.141 and No.168, other roads, city B and C category streets, ferries and entrances to the seaport, which is a common communication system and developed by port undertakings and their customers with the same rights as all. In the system of Klaipėda city and port functioning, state roads A1 Vilnius – Kaunas – Klaipėda, A11 Šiauliai – Palanga, A13 Klaipėda – Liepoja, No.141 Kaunas – Jurbarkas – Šilutė – Klaipėda and No.168 Klaipėda – Kretinga are the main communication corridors with Klaipėda. Among those relations are the relations between Lithuania and foreign countries with the seaport and relocation abroad.
2. Identification tool for electricity (OPS) demand
The greening of shipping is a priority for European port stakeholders. This entails addressing emissions from shipping both during navigation and at berth. Onshore power supply (OPS), also known as shore-side electricity, is one of the technologies available to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions at berth.
Shore-to-ship power, or shore-side electricity, can reduce emissions while ships are berthed in port by providing power from shore-side electricity rather than from the onboard auxiliary generators. This allows ships to turn off the auxiliary engines while they are docked in port, reducing their negative impact on local communities due to noise and air pollution.
Shore-to-ship power is especially applicable to ships operating on dedicated routes and vessels that consume large amounts of power when berthed. Typical vessel types in Klaipeda port include ferries, cruise ships, LNG carriers, tankers and container ships.
OPS facilities can serve as a clean power supply for maritime transport in Klaipeda Port where air quality is poor or noise levels are high. However, various technical challenges have led to limited adoption of this alternative solution. Although a sizeable majority of ships already are equipped with the potential for some electrical connection to shore, these typically involve low-voltage OPS for limited energy supply. This can be used in parallel with onboard energy or applied during periods when the ship is not in service, whilst at berth, with reduced power or energy demand.
The Port of Klaipėda aims to develop an electricity demand estimation tool to accurately estimate the demand for OPS based on the number of ships calling at the port and to distribute this demand evenly among customers by establishing infrastructure for this purpose. That requires an IT tool for easy access of OPS and electrical power. purpose.
3. The monitoring system for the rain water outlets
The total of 67 outfalls of municipal and industrial wastewater, stormwater are discharged into the Curonian Lagoon. In order to ensure maximum control over these outfalls, the Portathon 2022 teams are challenged to develop an operative monitoring system for the stormwater (rain or snowmelt) outlets to identify pollution cases using water quality or visual recognition systems. By using data from the challenge providers – AB Klaipėdos vanduo and Klaipėda State Seaport Authority – to generate a solution that would be able to identify the release of polluted water and send an alarm.
4. Sustainable packaging design for natural oil spills sorbent
When a spill occurs, it is important to clean it up as soon as possible to minimise the damage to nature. Oil spills treatment methods can be systemized as mechanical, chemical or biological. To collect fuel waste modern industry mainly uses chemicals. They make fuel waste heavier, it sinks out of sight to the seabed, but does not solve the problem. There is a need for sustainable innovative solutions which will help to minimize risks for the local ecosystem and negative impacts on human well-being.
One of the deep tech innovations developed by Inobiostar and Klaipeda University is a biotechnology. It is designed for the decomposition of oil pollutants in the marine environment, using oil-eating microorganisms extracted from the Baltic Sea environment. We found that some microorganisms use oil as a food. And we have only to create best conditions for them to fight with oil spills. So, in our labs we are combining those microorganisms with natural support materials like straw. As well as simulating different application scenarios.
Advantages of the technology:
- environmentally friendly
- using local raw materials (agricultural residue)
- durable materials and a fast effect
- to be used at any distance from the shore and any depth
- easily adapted in different countries.
Our challenge for you is to find sustainable packaging design (shape, size and material) for our product – straw with oil-eating microorganisms.
Final product should be packaged using sustainable material with a good contact between spilled oil and the product. The package should be biodegradable or reusable. The shape and the size of the package should be user-friendly. It is important to have easer product transportation and storage.
5. Automated tool for assessing the quality of street cleaning by using GPS data
Klaipėda city municipality administration (KCMA) is looking for a solution capable of automated monitoring of street cleaning in order to reduce pollution and ensure the quality of street cleaning in Klaipėda city. Street cleaning in Klaipėda city is carried out by cleaning companies according to signed contracts. After the cleaning job is done the company submits reports of their completed work to KCMA with GPS data.
The developed tool should automate the comparative analysis between the GPS data specified in the contract and the GPS data obtained in the report. The automated street cleaning quality assessment tool can also be enhanced by the provision of video/photos to demonstrate that the street after cleaning is visibly cleaner than before.
6. Decision making tool to support management team in case of logistics accidents
IoT devices, sensors, smart equipment and human operators produce gigabytes of historical data: updates, configuration changes, internal parameters, system logs, processing time, system events, logistic records, etc. In such critical infrastructures, big data can be used not only to optimize process and predict results, but also to identify a variety of threats such as equipment overloading, system misusing and increasing cyber-security risk. DigiTechPort project is looking for a decision how to extract useful information out of big data to support strategic decisions or automate immediate respond in case of incidents.
7. The platform for monitoring and controlling the emissions in the shipping industry
Transportation and supply chain logistics have a big impact on carbon emissions and there is a need to find ways to decarbonize the shipping industry. One approach is to develop a platform in which the emissions are to be monitored and controlled. To implement the emissions inventory approach a digital model of data acquisition, diagnostics and prediction need to be diligently formulated. The solution should formulate a type of Intelligent Decision Support System in which companies or organizations are introduced to the growing field of Data-Driven Decision Support Systems. The use of such tools that are based on Data Driven approach can help in formulating efficient decarbonization strategies and transition maritime logistics to a low-carbon economy.
This challenge is provided by Decade2030.
8. Data collection and monitoring tool
Tool would gather publicly available statistical information on revenue, employment, infrastructure development, investment, and profitability to monitor sectors’ economic health and social impact on the region. Such a data analysis tool would allow us to capture the real added value – for the region – developing within the framework of the exclusive maritime sector. The sea and the port are exceptional factors for the region’s residents, cities, and local and national economic opportunities.
In order to implement the strategy of the city of Klaipėda 2030, it is necessary to follow and analyze the changing indicators in the defined sectors: maritime economy, bioeconomy, advanced industrial and creative, and service economies – which all benefit from the seashore. Statistical data would make it possible to effectively measure not only progress but also stagnation, which requires quick decision-making. Such analysis of regional data allows not only to base the city development strategy but also significantly reduces the decision-making process at the national policy level. Underestimated economic potential cannot be stimulated both locally and nationally. Therefore, all solutions should be prepared on the basis of accurate data that would allow modelling the further sustainable development of the city.
It should be borne in mind that the Blue Economy is no longer just a concept, it is a rapidly and in priority implemented strategy of the European Union. The further existence of Klaipėda city and region is not possible without the effective implementation of these principles. Its effectiveness directly depends on data monitoring, analysis, and further prediction.
Challenge provided by the city development agency”Klaipėda ID”.
9. AI-driven technology solution
AI-driven technology solution to overcome inefficiencies and during the due diligence phase predict any potential risks associated with a specific cargo, operator, or contract.
Freight forwarders, shipping companies & other maritime operators experience significant operational inefficiencies in their due diligence on cargo compliance with all local and international regulations. These inefficiencies and frequent subsequent gaps might result in hefty penalties or (at times fatal) impairments. The challenge consists in providing maritime operators with a hyper-efficient AI-driven technology solution to overcome such inefficiencies and able to accurately predict in real-time, during due diligence phase, any potential risks associated with a specific cargo, operator, or contract.
