Poole Maritime Festival’s Business Programme 2019 has been hailed a success, after attracting around 450 delegates over five days.
BCP Council organises the Business Programme alongside a number of local organisations, this was its third year.
The focus of this year’s event was ‘looking to the future’ and technology.
Graham Farrant, Chief Executive of BCP Council, said “I am delighted that the Poole Maritime Festival Business Programme continues to grow year on year in strength and numbers.
“It is very important for the Council to continue supporting and investing into this event to help grow our significantly important marine and maritime sector locally.
“I would like to say a big thank you to everyone involved for the quality of the content and for bringing together a wide-range of stakeholders in the industry across the whole week.”
The opening event
A Smart Ports Focus Group launched the event, this Council organised meeting explored ideas surrounding smart port solutions.
In the morning, a masterclass from UK Digital Catapult about key digital technology in smart ports took place.
In the afternoon, the discussion switched to real challenges faced by local ports.
Around 80 delegates attended the event.
Rick Stein’s restaurant hosted Dorset Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Maritime Business Breakfast, which gives local businesses a chance to network.
Women in engineering
After this breakfast around 50 delegates attended Dorset Engineering & Manufacturing Cluster’s ‘Women in Engineering’ event at the RNLI.
A number of female speakers took part, coming from the RNLI, Siemens and Talbot Heath School – amongst others.
Haven Hotel played host to the Marine Growth and Innovation Conference which aimed to explore some of the challenges facing the sector and showcase some success stories.
This was a popular event attended by 130 delegates which featured a number of prominent speakers such as the OECD and Make UK; Sunseeker and MTU UK gave a double presentation on hybrid propulsion.
The last day
The week ended with a Marine STEM Challenge which brought together year nine students from local schools who were tutored by business leaders and tasked with solving local flooding issues using IoT technology.
The competition was judged by the Chairman of BCP Council, Dorset Engineering and Manufacturing Cluster along with representatives of Actisense and Young Enterprise.
The winners came from St. Edwards School
The Business Programme was followed by the highly popular Poole Harbour Boat Show on the weekend and a number of maritime-related events.