Big data has been on our maritime agenda for some years now. We have not only seen big data in shipping, but we are also increasingly experiencing the impact in the day to day. Digital frontrunners (such as Amazon and Alibaba) have found ways to drive value from the big data surrounding us. Meaning data is becoming a truly valuable business asset. In this era of the connected ship, with increasing reliance on digital paradigms such as the cloud, IoT, sensors, remote monitoring, blockchain, electronic navigational systems, electronic data exchange, we are generating ever growing pools of data. But how does the ship owner control this data? How can we manage regulations such as GDPR? What are the legal implications and potential risks? How do we address cyber security and ownership issues? Increased data availability and transparency has led shipping companies to review their approaches to operational efficiency and performance analysis – and investigate ways to integrate data into their operations and make it valuable. We need to determine the most valuable relationships among the variables we collect. We need to translate big data into smart data. It is time to take the journey from big data to big value. The Forum will investigate what we need to create this value. What are the key-drivers, who are the key actors, and how do we prepare our internal organisation? Who should we collaborate with and how can we identify the best practices in our industry and across other industry segments?

Through three clearly defined sessions we will investigate how to make big data a valuable business asset.