Strengthening the ties between ITU and the maritime industry

Workshops where students, researchers, and the business community together identify and solve digital challenges in the maritime industry. Hackathons, where IT developers and the maritime business community meet and collaborate intensively on the development of prototypes, concepts, or similar digital challenges.

These are some of the objectives of The Maritime Hub, which is a new Danish networking organization that will create synergies across maritime companies as well as researchers and students at the IT University in Copenhagen:

“The maritime industry is facing a major digital transformation, where there is a need for strong IT skills, and we at ITU would like to help meet that demand,” says Rune Møller Jensen, who is the leader of The Maritime Hub.

He facilitates the newly created The Maritime Hub, which with support from The Danish Maritime Fund will kick-start the new project. Rune Møller Jensen has for several years worked as a lecturer at the Department of Computer Science at ITU - with a special focus on the maritime. In fact, he is the only one at ITU who has worked specifically with maritime research throughout his career at the university. And in general, the knowledge of the opportunities within the maritime industry is relatively low at ITU, which The Maritime Hub intends to change with the newly created initiative.

ITU was working on another maritime initiative when a meeting with Lotte G. Lundberg, who is the director of The Danish Maritime Fund, turned everything upside down:

“Lotte asks me if a project could not be established that focuses on making The Blue Denmark more visible at ITU. As a maritime researcher, I was immediately ignited by the idea, and only a month and a half later we presented The Danish Maritime Fund for the project, which has since become what we have received support for today,” says Rune Møller Jensen.

And at The Danish Maritime Fund, it is a great pleasure that ITU brought the project to life. The Danish Maritime Fund wants to strengthen the cooperation between the maritime industries and the educational institutions in order to create the right interdisciplinary conditions for continuously developing the future of shipping in Denmark:

“We are very pleased with the establishment of The Maritime Hub because it creates new and better frameworks for building collaborations and networks for both students, researchers, and companies. It is crucial if we are to succeed with the enormous digitization task that awaits us in The Blue Denmark. Yesterday’s competencies and employees are not the same as required tomorrow - and we need the sharpest minds both within hardtech and softtech,” says Lotte G. Lundberg, who is the director of The Danish Maritime Fund.

The Danish Maritime Fund supports the establishment of The Maritime Hub with DKK 3.5 million.

More information Theis Duelund Jensen, press responsible, +45 25 55 04 47, thej@itu.dk

Infobox

The Maritime Hub aims to make The Blue Denmark visible at the IT University through active bridge-building between the maritime industry and ITU’s students and researchers. The project’s activities include:

Identification of the industry’s IT challenges and matching competencies at ITU - including continuing education offers. Engagement of ITU’s students and researchers in maritime collaborations with the possibility of covering the students’ expenses. Holding a larger annual conference at ITU with experience exchange and matchmaking with candidates. Holding specific workshops and hackathons.