Maritime Makers

Dan Ng is CEO of CyberOwl, a disruptive startup helping maritime asset operators gain visibility of the cyber risks to their distributed, remote assets. CyberOwl helps fleet operators understand what they have onboard, keep it secure and prove they have secured it. Before building CyberOwl he was Associate Director at KPMG, where he focused on the Defense, Security and Industrial sectors. During that time, he worked extensively developing propositions, market entry and commercial strategies for global security, defense, technology and engineering companies such as Northrop Grumman, Atos and BP. Dan was also Chair of a Working Group at the IoT Security Foundation, Council Member of the Digital Technology Group of the UK Society for Maritime Industries and Steering Committee Member for the Operational Technology Cyber Security Alliance. 
We talk about maritime cyber security and the experience of coming into the maritime space as an outsider and building a startup. 

We talk about startups in the context of accelerators, specifically Techstars that partners with Eastern Pacific Shipping. AI, robotics, and drones are key technologies that are being brought to bear in shipping by several highly innovative startups in Singapore. They have the potential to significantly reduce harmful emissions and increase profitability.

Dr. Steffen Knodt is the head of the Sustainable Ocean Business Center at Fraunhofer in Rostock / Germany. He has worked in various senior management roles in applied research and industry, recently focusing on impact entrepreneurship and venturing. He's a board member and a mentor to startups. Currently, he serves in the German Committee for the UN Ocean Decade of Science for Sustainable Development, as well as a member of the board of the German Association for Marine Technology GMT. He did his PhD in production technology at the technical university RWTH Aachen.

We talk about autonomous underwater vehicles and the importance of increasing our understanding of the oceans, both for commercial and environmental reasons.

Gerald Kane is the author of "The Technology Myth: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation", published by MIT Press. He is also the Faculty Director of the Edmund H. Shea Jr. Center for Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Information Systems at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He is a senior editor at MIS Quarterly, the most prestigious academic journal on information systems.

For "The Technology Fallacy" , he surveyed over 20,000 executives worldwide and interviewed over 100 executive and thought leaders to determine the key factors associated with digitally mature companies. He concluded that an organization's response to digital disruption should focus on people and processes and not necessarily on technology.

We talk about disruption and how people are the real key to digital disruption, as well as the importance of maintaining the momentum of the incredibly rapid innovation that has taken place during the COVID lockdowns. 

Raghu Ravinutala was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug long before he co-founded yellow.ai in 2016 with a vision to make customer and enterprise interactions more effective and effortless. Previously, he worked for 16 years with leading tech companies such as Texas Instruments and Broadcom, taking leadership roles in engineering, product management and business development both in the Bay Area and India. He is an alumnus of NIT Warangal, enjoys a game of squash every now and then and believes in practicing an active lifestyle. 

We talk about conversation automation platforms and the AI underlying it, and the work yellow.ai has done with ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) and their Digital Fleet offering.

Bjørn Højgaard is CEO of Anglo Eastern Univan Group, one of the world’s leading ship management companies. He’s been director at Thome Ship Management, Brigantine Group and A.P. Møller Singapore, as well as manager of operations, efficiency & IT for APM Terminals.

Before moving into shore-side management, he was a master mariner with A.P. Møller - Maersk, commanding one of the shipping group’s largest container vessels at the time.

He is the present chairman of the Hong Kong Shipowners Association, a council member of INTERTANKO, chairman of the Maritime and Port Development Committee under the Hong Kong Maritime and Port Board, a member of the Hong Kong Trade Development Council’s Logistics Services Advisory Committee and a general committee member of The Sailors Home and Mission to Seafarers in Hong Kong.

We talk about how important it is to team up with the right strategic partners  and the similarities between management and art.

Michael Stolarczyk is Senior Vice President and CFO of CakeBoxx Technologies. He has held various C-level roles with companies like Ports America, Kontane Logistics, Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, and he spent 17 years with the A. P. Moller Maersk Group.

In 2002, his efforts led to Maersk’s quantum growth in Central Europe, and he was named to Fast Company magazine’s debut “Fast 50" list of Global Innovators.

Michael published his first book, “Logical Logistics – A Common Sense Primer for your Supply Chain” in  2011. In 2013, he was named Port Executive of the Year by Global Supply Chain Management Leaders.   

He earned a BSBA in Organizational Design and Development from West Virginia University and is a founding member, and currently sits on the board of, the Almost Heaven Scholarship Fund, and is also a 15 year member of West Virginia University's John Chambers School of Business and Economics.  

Prior to joining CakeBoxx Technologies in March 2020, he did stints at Veristor Systems and Microsoft, where he was Director of Global Logistics in Asia.

We talk about the innovations that CakeBoxx Technologies have brought to shipping and the value of continuous business planning for thriving in disruptive times. 

Bent Erik Bjørkli is vice President and Head of the Kognifai Partner Program, Digital Ocean, at Kongsberg Digital. He believes in a more efficient, collaborative and transparent maritime industry, using digitization as a tool to make it happen. He sees it as his job is to offer the best combined solutions through external partnerships with the early adopters in offshore and shipping.

His background is from the Norwegian Naval Academy and submarine services, followed by various customer support and product positions in Kongsberg. He is now leading a team to create a growing coalition of companies that want to work with KONGSBERG to improve efficiency at sea using new technologies through a digital ecosystem called Kognifai.

We talk about disruption through partnerships and how smaller teams can succeed where larger organizations fail.

Sven-Eric Brooks is a business manager and IoT evangelist. He has studied at the University of Warsaw and holds an executive MBA in shipping and logistics from Copenhagen Business School. He has over 20 years of experience in the maritime industry with expertise in integrated bridge systems, smart and connected vessels and chip operations. He was business director at Northrop Grumman Sperry marine before joining KVH in 2020 as senior business development director, IoT. He lives with his wife and two sons in the countryside south of Hamburg, Germany.

We talk about IoT and the digital transformation that it enables for ship owners and digital service providers, digging into the practical experiences. We discuss data, automation and augmented work spaces and speculate on the future of autonomous shipping.

Levine Naidoo is a frictionless supply chain executive with the IBM Sterling business unit. His passion is to reduce business friction within supply chain and compliance related disciplines. He is an active member of several international standards, technical committees, and has a wealth of experience in driving mass market adoption of standards and technological change.

We talk about how to reduce friction in supply chains and business in general. We discuss the role of AI and automation. We talk about the central role of change management and people, even within the field of AI itself.