Damen Shipyards Partners with Port Accelerator PortXL
Dutch Damen Shipyards Group has become a corporate partner of the PortXL accelerator program for the maritime industry.
PortXL has been described as the world’s first port accelerator. Its objective is the acceleration of innovative technologies for the green energy, maritime, logistics, and process industry in port regions across the world.
This is not the first time Damen has been connected with PortXL. In 2015 Damen was one of the first companies to support the start-up support program in its early days.
“We will be participating again from this year on,” explains Tom Akkerman of Damen. “We want to boost the transition of the maritime sector. In addition to our Research, Development & Innovation trajectories and our own Corporate Venturing program, in which we work together with start-ups and scale-ups, collaboration within PortXL is an excellent opportunity to create acceleration in the field of sustainability and digitalization.”
Tara Koole, Program Manager at PortXL said: "At PortXL we welcome Damen and look forward to working together towards our common mission. Our corporate partners are at the forefront of maritime innovation. Their desire to innovate and collaborate with novel solutions is what fuels PortXL."
The industry has major challenges ahead of it, the main two being energy transition and digitalization. The search for reducing emissions to (almost) zero is an endeavor that will shape shipping in the next decades. The digitalization of operations is a precondition for this but is also a particularly important driver to improve the quality and efficiency of work overall, Damen said in a statement.
The PortXL ecosystem consists of start-ups and scale-ups, investors and partners, and companies such as lead partners Van Oord and Port of Rotterdam, as well as partners Vopak, Boskalis, Shell, Oceanco, Deltares, City of Rotterdam, Ampelmann, Damen, InnovationQuarter and Provincie Zuid-Holland.
According to PortXL, which is in its seventh year of operation, PortXL has so far executed more than 10 programs, accelerated more than 100 start-ups and scale-ups, and facilitated the signing of over 220 contracts.