Call for Contributors in the Deep Dive event, 3-4 December in Valencia

[noemi]

Maritime hubs experts meet community innovators

An opportunity to discover inspirational approaches, technologies and people who contribute to environmentally sustainable ecosystems around maritime ports and port authorities, as well as in connected urban/rural environments. The Deep Dive focuses on accelerating learning between a broad range of participants who are driving environmental change in their own community, both in ports and other industry and creative hubs where innovation happens. We believe approaches outside of ports are valuable and partly replicable in some areas of maritime work.

To that end, the Deep Dive brings together sustainability experts from the Ports of Valencia, Cyprus, Piraeus, as well as innovators activists and communities from Spain, Italy, Sweden, and from across the world who are deploying novel open source technologies, circular economy projects, uncanny partnerships for change.

Format

Interactivity. The two day event is an informal, active conversation among 30-40 participant contributors, all of whom share contextualized knowledge about environmental sustainability initiatives in their organisations. A mix of introductions, short talks and breakout sessions will enable us to ‘dive deep’ into each other’s work and look at challenges from new angles, as well as explore new ways of working together to drive innovation in the near future.

Everyone is a contributor. All of those attending are asked to prepare in advance by reading about the others and their work. On site, everyone engages in constructive conversation by listening, asking questions, and offering advice and network connections to others.

Generative process: We will be departing from key contributors’ critical challenges to create a ‘Wild Ideas’ space where those challenges are reflected back with new questions which focus on revealing hidden opportuntities. The final sessions in particular are designed to map out collaboration activities and new networks to involve in maritime hubs transformations, as put forward by the entire group of participants.

The outcome of the event is a shared understanding of new, alternative, inclusive approaches to building environmentally sustainable ecosystems.

Shared documentation for network learning. All sessions will be documented thoroughly in order to ensure that both the EIT Climate KIC partners and event contributors can benefit and build upon in the near future. Online documents for note-naking will be shared with all participants for real time capturing of insights.

For latest version check with @Ilaria. An open-ended program. We build it with you.

A skeleton program is provided below. Expect changes, as new contributors come in and each contribution is accommodated to best support the group learning.

Location: Valenciaport Foundation.

TUESDAY, 3 December

9h00 - Arrival and Check-in.

9h30 - Welcome by Edgeryders & EIT Climate-KIC: Why are we here? How do we understand sustainability?

10h30 - Community innovation (I) - making ports more environmentally conscious and liveable places for industry and humans
Short Talks (10’), followed by Q&A.

• Vania Statzu, MedSea Foundation in Cagliari
• Eleonora Sovrani, We Are Here in Venice
• Thomas Goorden, Antwerp

12h30 - Lunch

14h00 - Flipping the Maritime challenge space. Valencia, Piraeus, Cyprus (TBC) connect what they have heard previously with one practical challenge from their own work. Other participants ask questions and flip the challenges upside down. New, precise questions are articulated.
Format: Breakout sessions.

15h00 - Coffee break

15h30 - What are we learning? Regroup and present to the entire group.
Format: Speakouts.

16:30 - Check-out.

17h00 - Social activity organised with local partners.

20:00 - Communal dinner and drinks.

WEDNESDAY, 4 December

9h30 - Check-in and self-organised sessions presentation.

10h00 - How collective intelligence can support networked innovation.
Talk and Q&A.

• Alberto Cottica, Edgeryders

10h45 - Coffee break

11h00 - Community innovation (II).
Short Talks (10’), followed by Q&A

• Sarah Jarsbo, Association Sydhavnen in Aarhus
• William Lloyd-George, COACT Lab in Valldaura
• Hugi Asgeirsson, Blivande House in Stockholm

12h30 - Lunch

14h00 - Wild Ideas: What are the small wins we could collectively achieve? Self-organised sessions and conversations about practical ways forward for each participant.

15h30 - Coffee break

16h00 - Discussion & Wrapup. Reporting back from Wild Ideas.

Register to the event

Discover Typeform, where forms = fun

The form also asks about your intended contribution. We will be in touch shortly after to schedule a call and discuss your participation at length.

Depending on the quality and fit of the contributions, we have the possibility to support a limited number of contributors by covering their travel and accommodation costs. Register soon to see if you can benefit from this!

List of contributors

We are here Venice: They campaign against big cruises in Venice lagoon, using strong scientific evidences and raising awarness to the general public in different ways, also with art performances/exhibitions. “We would like to take this opportunity to present different aspects of the influence of cruise traffic in the lagoon and to share the ways in which we have been campaigning against large ships for years, helping to disseminate scientific and recent data on the damage caused and to arouse interest in public opinion.”

COACT Lab: Research in an open-source environmental tech incubator outside Barcelona, focussing on creating scalable and usable solutions. They propose to “talk about open source solutions for the port systems. Also, we could go an extra stage ask the port stakeholders what are there biggest issues / challenges and how we could craft an incubator program to find solutions for them.”
Attending: @William_COACT

Blivande House. A 1000 m2 house and center for participatory art, culture and organisations situated in the Stockholm harbour. It hosts a co-working space, a makers space, artists studios and residencies. It started out in 2018 as a partnership between the community and the local authorities, and its vision is to build a creative ecosystem and experimentation space i.e. building modular container art galleries and workspaces, or miniature Swedish pine forest in the top container of the tower, as well as other projecfts for urban gardening and greening.
Attending: @hugi.

More to come, stay tuned!

Organisers

Edgeryders: Facilitator. Community organisation and participatory platform for over 5500 members from all over the world. Our EarthOS environment and climate unit is recently born to work actively on projects connected to sustainability, deep adaptation, and ways to face the challenges that climate crisis is bringing to our societies.
Attending: @Alberto @Ilaria @Noemi

EIT Climate-KIC. A European knowledge and innovation community, working towards a prosperous, inclusive, climate-resilient society founded on a circular, zero-carbon economy.Their recent strategy Transformation, in Time focuses on Deep Demonstrations of a Net-Zero Emissions, Resilient Future. To this end, Climate-KIC is funding several initiatives that contribute to ecosystem building across networks. The Deep Dive event is one of them.

Fundacion Valenciaport: community partner of EIT Climate-KIC and co-host of the event.

For more information and inquiries, leave a comment below and we’ll be quick to answer!

[trythis]

Woop woop! This sounds interesting!

I am a pretty wacky technologist who would be up for looking into this. I have worked with fine (and nano) particles, know a thing or two about some of the issues here, and through partner and friends have a decent insight into shipping business requirements.

If someone plans to physically go - I’d love to chat beforehand and perhaps meet up (I am in Marseille) or pair up with them and join remotely.
I’d also not sneeze at a chance to visit Valencia, but family-wise that is usually less of a commitment I can make reliably.

[noemi]

Thanks! So I hear that you are ambivalent about traveling in person, but are keen on participating remotely. Is that correct? Let’s talk next week to understand concretely where your interests are.

Maybe interesting for this thread is: Is there any specific problem of ports sustainability that interests you the most?
Just to give you an example about the shipping business, some of the people at Fundacion Valenciaport, when we visited, spoke about the need for retrofitting vessels and port equipment, but the issue is part technical and part politics. Politics aside, are you anywhere near this in your research? what do you see as a turning point in making ships more environmental?

Or other issue you can contextualize so that we see where exactly your expertise would be best brought in.

[trythis]

Hey Noemi,
There’s two aspects that are interesting to me personally. I have a number of friends and acquaintances working in the sector, including a port master, former captains, pilots, navy people, and quite some in the container shipping industry. I’d like to see if I can get some of them excited to contribute or join in some form.

Apart from that I am a technologist that can usually deliver decent broadsides when it comes to “Wild Idea Space”.

[trythis]

I’ve joined @ilaria in a call just now and think I have a good idea of what this could be about. Just to give you a taste some ideas one could pursue are:

1. Exhaust scrubbing using portable drone delivered electron scrubbers (see slide 29 or this pres)
2. Electric remote/drone tug boats charged directly in offshore windparks with excess energy. Essentially a floating battery bank + motor and sensors to pull ships in and out of port without the particle pollution. “Sector coupling” if you like.
3. Wired power delivery to ships in port. Currently a major issue is that electrification projects are localized and inflexible. If you have heavy duty drones (airborne and submerged) they can allow connecting a ship over considerable distances without disrupting the traffic. It would be like a huge flying spark spitting snake.

[noemi]

@trythis

I am a technologist that can usually deliver decent broadsides when it comes to “Wild Idea Space”.

Haha, that I am sure of!

Anyway, I guess a good approach for us to continue is to

1. see if you woudl like to come in person after all - your technical expertise in your 3 points below I think would come in very handy in the breakouts in Day 1 when ports will present some of their stuff. Especially the scrubbing issue - they were saying how scrubbers are themselves big polluters, so any solutions to that would be interesting to explore.
2. send out this call forward to people you know. They are welcome to register through the form, and myself and Ilaria can get in touch with them after.

Thanks so much!

[trythis]

I am working towards a rationalization to come in person currently. I also floated some of my ideas to a port master (medium size) I know fairly well, who happens to operate the first electric tug boat in France.

Unfortunately he is moving, and likely starting a new job, while currently training his successor - so there’s no chance to get him to the event. But he’d be happy to help out via answering questions etc. so that is a win already.

Another friend just went to a Climate KIC related hackathon and I look forward to hearing from him. If I do go to Valencia I might be able to tag him along digitally. He has a very strong sustainable energy background (wind), and may have time to engage more heavily as well.

@ilaria if you guys have another call tomorrow I’ll try to jump on again, and listen more this time.

[ilaria]

Hey there! Good to hear that
We won’t have the call this week, but next one for sure. I’ll write you soon with updates about it!

[trythis]

Cool - works for me!

[trythis]

Registered!

Time to get some tickets.
@ilaria it looks like I’ll take the bus from Marseille on Monday already, we’ll likely have partially a similar route if you also go along the coast.
Let me know if you’d like me to bring some extra kit (projector, mics, recorders, stuff for remote attendance).
I wonder if there is some chance of a “port themed accommodation”, perhaps they have “old sailor’s houses” or something else that is relevant for the event itself perhaps?

The way it looks this is from where the buses will arrive to the event venue: Google Maps

[trythis]

@ilaria sorry I missed the call because I was still stuck in another one. Let me know if there was anything I should be aware of before I come!

I already downloaded Fundacion Valenciaport’s latest annual report (in English!) to my ebook reader so I can develop a better idea where their heads are at the moment.

[ilaria]

That’s great, Sam!
Unfortunately I won’t be in Toulouse then, so I’ll take a different way to get to Valencia. Anyway, I’ll be there on Monday around noon so, as soon as you arrive in Valencia, we could meet.
For the extra kit, I don’t think it will be necessary, but let me ask Fundacion Valenciaport for it.
The “port themed accommodation” is a wonderful idea! I don’t know if there’s something like this, but I’ll check. We booked an Airbnb near the beach, in the Cabanyal area.

No worries about the call, you are our most frequent participant We met Elias from Pyraeus port, Eleonora from We Are Here Venice, Monika from NTU (another designer partner of this project) and Rocio and Lucia from Fundacion Valenciaport.
It’s awesome that you downloaded their report; thank you so much for being so committed!

[trythis]

Cool - just wanted to check. I’ll probably arrive early in the morning, but not sure in what state. Don’t feel obliged to meet up, but if there is something where I can lend a hand (perhaps also to FV), I’d be happy to help.
I’ve got an oldish Acer 5330 projector, tripod, and one of those cheap small projectors. If they’ve maybe got some use for them I’ll be happy to bring them. The recording stuff is so small I’ll bring it anyway.

I hope to meet all the other folks soon in another call.

Also @hugi or other people in the calls or outside let me know if you want to brainstorm a little at some point.
I also want to mention that I believe @gentlewest has an education around shipping, and with him being in Cameroon might also be able to contribute some different viewpoints (unusual suspect etc). But I also know that he is extremely busy and I actually should be helping him write up that article on the events he is currently running for our educational project (Mother of Pearl).