The Connected River project met once again, this time in the city of Antwerp (Belgium) hosted by our two local partners the Flemish Environment Agency (VMM) and Antwerp Management School (AMS). Already reaching half of the project duration, the project celebrated its achievements by a Mid-term Event. This event, taking place on Monday 30/09 in the incredible HavenHuis designed by Zaha Hadid, was open to external partners. Several roundtables, but also keynote speeches and an expo were meant to present the project’s objectives and achievements so far.
AIVP’s General Manager spoke during the roundtable on scaling innovation, presenting the Port Center Concept and how AIVP went from a concept to a reality, now in 8 different locations throughout the world.
During the event, AIVP was also involved in the organization of the Connection and Reflection group meeting that took place on the 1st of October. This group is made of external partners and is aimed at giving strategic advice to the Connected project but also to help disseminate the methodologies and experimentation to a broader audience. A diverse group of partners joined us during this half day of workshop. We were happy to count on our members the city of Paris and HAROPA, but also partners like Voies Navigables de France, EIT – Urban Mobility, Waag FutureLab and Rijkswaterstaat. The workshop aimed at creating a “river case” for the Seine and the Nijmegen broader area, meaning the application of Connected River methods and experimentations to different areas. It was facilitated by Innovalor Advies and researchers from the Port City Future lab from TU Delft led by Carola Hein.
The Connection and Reflection group will follow the project until it reaches the end and will hopefully carry on its legacy in the future.
After this, a visit to the Pilot Area of the Kleine Nete river was organized where the participants could experiment a sort of digital scavenger hunt prepared by the Port of Hamburg, following the experimentation they are developing in their own pilot area (see the associated Good Practice). At the same time, some of the project partners could experiment kayaking on the river and be the testers for the camera counting system set up by PortPay along the river.
The last day of the meeting was spent on a workshop prepared by Antwerp Management School and Logistics Initiative Hamburg to help the pilot areas imagine the conditions for the scalability of their experimentations and already start thinking about the next steps.
The Connected River Project is funded by the program Interreg North Sea of the European Union. The other partners of the project are Ports of Lille, Ecoloop, Digital Hub Hamburg, City of Nijmegen, City of Vordingborg
For more information on the project, you can take a look at the website or reach out to Noémi Mené nmene@aivp.org.
