From Som-Inn Port we give the two innovation agents Anna Navarro and Nuri Bordas our warmest congratulations since their idea “WorldFriendly/Port” has been selected in the first call of “Ports 4.0”.
Anna Navarro and Nuri Bordas, Som-Inn Port innovation agents and APT workers.
The Ports 4.0 public fund, part of the Entrepreneurship Development Plan for Innovation in the Port Sector, aims to promote the creation or consolidation of a network of startups, spin-off or new business lines of existing companies that develop and implement innovative products, services and processes for the Spanish port logistics sector with market orientation. This fund has been created and financed through the Interport Compensation Fund and is managed by Ports of the State that launched the first call.
This first call has been targeted for ideas, pre-commercial and commercial projects.
In the ideas section, 160 proposals were submitted. Of these, 100 ideas were admitted. Finally, 33 ideas have been selected, of which 28 correspond to the general section and 5 to the intra-entrepreneurship section.
The process of evaluating and selecting the ideas presented in this first call was completed on 8 April 2021. A 10-day period of allegations has now begun. The process of evaluating commercial projects has started.
The seed of the Idea WorldFriendly/Port, selected in the intra-entrepreneurship section, germinated during Som-Inn Port’s first open innovation pilot cycle that carried out between 2018-2019, where one of the challenges that arose was: How can we help women have a greater presence at the port to achieve greater equality of opportunity, greater reconciliation, a greater sense of security, equal pay and responsibilities, better professional development and, ultimately, greater visibility in the port?
The members of one of the innovation cells that participated in this first Open Innovation Cycle, of which Anna Navarro and Nuri Bordas were part, developed this challenge and, through participation in the various workshops organized by Som-Inn Port, presented the project and prototype ” Women Friendly Stamp”.
From the beginning Anna Navarro and Nuri Bordas expressed their willingness to move forward with this intra-entrepreneurship project. When the first call for Ports 4.0 was published, they began to prepare their proposal, greatly expanding the scope of the initial project.
To submit their proposal to the Call for Ports 4.0 they developed a detailed technical report that included, among several aspects, the definition of the innovative component, the plan for conducting the proof of the concept (Level TRL.3) and the Business Model Canvas of the idea. They also recorded a video explaining the idea and finally made a live pitch for the governing body of the Call.
The World Friendly/Port Idea aims to develop a new port model, the WFriendly/Port, which serves as a common framework for unifying criteria and analyzing its development globally, and defining a WFriendly/Port index that indicates the level of model compliance at ports, offering data and information linked to WFriendly that accelerate the fulfillment of different sustainable development goals of the 2030 Agenda, as well as the entry into the Fourth Industrial Revolution at ports. A web application will be developed for dissemination and marketing. And all this, using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to be able to apply the model and the WFriendly index on a large scale, so that we can analyze and process large volumes of information from different sources.
The port model of the future will be based on three axes:
– Earth Friendly/: It will indicate how a port is doing in terms of protecting natural resources, using reusable and clean energies and the impact it has on the environment.
– Digital Friendly/: It will help to know how ports apply digital transformation and innovation to improve their processes and their use of new technologies for operational improvement and efficiency.
– People Friendly/: It is the social axis that will show how ports focus on improving the quality of life of people, both the port community and the people who live around the port.
World Friendly/Port wants to define common criteria that will help ports and logistical-port communities understand the most important elements for the future of ports, a new port model to seek compliance with the 2030 Agenda and enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda indicate key aspects that all individuals and organizations must meet in order to live in a better world. However, these targets must be adjusted for ports and adapted for each port type.
Ports are making efforts to define their sustainability and digitization plans, but they need to know objectively and in a standardized way whether they are working in the right direction and getting the desired results. Starting with the designed WFriendly model, a WFriendly index will be defined, which will evaluate the level of compliance with the model of each port. This index will independently provide port status relative to different axes and allow to view the overall status of the ports. The index will be the result of the interrelationship of the Earth Friendly, Digital Friendly and People Friendly axes
In order to perform the proof of concept (PoC) the World Friendly /Port idea has the support of:
- Port sector:
- Tarragona’s Port Authority
- Valencia’s Port Authority
- Algeciras Port Authority
- DP World
- Euroports
- University and research centres:
- RESET Research Group: “Social Responsibility, Sustainability and Business Ethics” of the URV
- EURECAT, Technological Centre of Catalonia
- URV Innovation Cathedra.
- International associations:
- IPCSA, International Port Community Systems Association.
- Innovation ecosystems and agencies:
- SOM-INN PORT
- ACCIÓ, Agency for business of the Generalitat de Catalunya
- SDLI, Innovation Agency.
Within the call for “Ports 4.0” the category of Ideas has an endowment of 500,000 euros, being the unitary aid of 15,000 euros.
The aid that World Friendly/Port and the other ideas selected will receive is the possibility of accessing the services of incubation of the idea or advice to facilitate the business growth of the idea, established in the territorial headquarters of the incubator-accelerator associated with the Entrepreneurship Impulse Plan for Innovation in the Port Sector “Ports 4.0”, and the amount of fifteen thousand euros to carry out the proof of concept.
The proof of concept will take place over the six-month period.
9 April 2021
TPA Studies and Innovation Department
