seatec - Finnish marine technology review 2/2015 | Page 41

recently charted the Mexican and Brazilian maritime markets. Another recent event was the technology seminar in Stavanger in Norway, arranged jointly with Finpro, with 21 Finnish maritime companies participating.” Overall, the maritime industry in Fin- photo: PORT OF HELSINKI LTD ”In the TRIMMI project, we have land currently employs approximately 16 000 people and has a total annual turnover of some 5.7 billion euros. COMBINING ICT AND MARITIME INNOVATIONS The aim of another Finnish maritime promotion project MERIT Turku is to find ways to strategically incorporate and utilise ICTrelated solutions in the maritime cluster, plus to promote the role of maritime industry as a forerunner in the utilisation of modern technologies. Manager Juha Valtanen from Machine Technology Center Turku Ltd. notes that MERIT Turku is a sister project for the larger Helsinki-based MERIT initiative. ”Both of these projects were started in the autumn of 2014. For MERIT Turku, the main financing was supplied by the Ministry of Employment and the Economy and the City of Turku,” Valtanen explains. ”Other initiatives for combining maritime and ICT solutions for the export markets have been ongoing since 2008, with a particular emphasis on the building and design of cruise ships.” ICT technologies would be helpful in various maritime mobile communications and positioning applications, as well as in improving the ease of operation, safety and environment-friendliness of a number of technical devices in the maritime environment. ”This starting point has already become a reality, pointing the way to the Smart Ship project and various other tangible projects with R&D emphasis,” mentions Valtanen. ”In MERIT Turku project, three new maritime ICT innovation events have already been scheduled to take place between the autumn of 2015 and the spring of 2016.” One of the main themes will be ’Augmented Reality’, aiming for the improved illustration of maritime design schemes with the aid of new ICT applications. seatec 2/2015 39