Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping – post NOR-SHIPPING 2023 interview
An exclusive interview to Baltic Journalist Maritime Club of the Baltic Sea & Space Cluster (BSSC)
By: Marek Grzybowski
More than 30 000 entries from 84 countries into the exhibition halls, where visitors experienced about 900 exhibiting companies, and total participant numbers of almost 52 000, including those at conferences, networking events and official social gatherings in the Nor-Shipping portal it is Nor-Shipping 2023 in numbers.
With the main Nor-Shipping 2023 theme of #PartnerShip, we were delighted to be collaborating with so many respected individuals and organisations on securing the profitable, sustainable health of our ocean space. No one can rise to the transition challenges that we are up against in solitude.
Marek Grzybowski: Nor Shipping can be considered a success in building partnerships in business and innovation, creating new initiatives in the field of international cooperation between the shipbuilding business and maritime transport, offshore and seaport, blue economy stakeholders. Congratulations to the team that prepared and managed the fair, conferences and meetings. How can Nor Shipping be characterized in numbers?
Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping:
Thank you, Marek! It was an unforgettable week indeed – a week we didn’t want to end! Initial analysis shows a total of 30 017 entries from 84 countries into the exhibition halls, where visitors experienced 892 exhibiting companies, and total participant numbers of almost 52 000, including those at conferences, networking events and official social gatherings in the Nor-Shipping portal. These figures do not include those attending the huge array of associated events all over Oslo during the week.
Marek Grzybowski: Numbers do not reflect the atmosphere of partnership that was actually established during Nor Shipping. The meeting of maritime business across Oslo and Lillestrøm began with a strong accent, an appeal to accelerate environmental protection activities. Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist and senior vice president of the World Bank, told an audience at the Ocean Leadership Conference that he predicted climate change would lead to less shipping. Kerry likened the fight against climate change to landing on D-Day. John Kerry called for accelerating the pace of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to zero. He argues that this is based on the latest scientific research and that if radical action is not accelerated, climate change could spiral out of control. Decarbonization has become one of the important topics of meetings during Nor Shipping. In what areas has Nor Shipping focused on solving global problems?
Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping:
You are right – you can’t quantify the incredible enthusiasm and sense of opportunity – the real desire to connect and do business – that defined the whole week. Nor-Shipping has always focused on quality over quantity; addressing key issues, showcasing breakthrough knowledge and innovations, appealing to global decisionmakers, and helping set the industry agenda for future developments.
With our main Nor-Shipping 2023 theme of #PartnerShip, we were delighted to be collaborating with so many respected individuals and organisations on securing the profitable, sustainable health of our ocean space. No one can rise to the transition challenges that we are up against in solitude. No single actor can address the evolving needs of cargo owners, and no one can juggle geopolitical shifts, energy concerns, regulatory framework, fuel options and decisions, attracting talent, and much more, without the right partners. But together, leveraging our individual strengths as collaborative partnerships, we can achieve truly ambitious objectives. The addition of John Kerry to our unique line-up of global authorities, experts and thought leaders confirms the importance of our Ocean Leadership Conference and Nor-Shipping’s ability to enable positive progress.
Marek Grzybowski: Nor Shipping was clearly dominated by large groups of exhibitors focused around national projects and global companies. You also gave a chance and a place to present start-ups and there was a campus for universities. How did start-ups and universities use the opportunity to present Nor Shipping?
Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping:
The startup area is an important and inspiring part of the exhibition floor, where startups are offered a cost-efficient all-inclusive stand option in the centre of the exhibition. It gives them an opportunity to showcase their product/service to a vast range of potential investors at a cost that a startup can justify. For Nor-Shipping, the startup area adds exciting, creative and innovative solutions to the exhibition floor that we are excited to continue to build on ahead.
The Ocean Campus initiative was introduced to help bridge the gap between tomorrow’s talent, employers and leading educational institutions. Given the shift in competence necessitated by the green transition, attracting more and new students to the maritime industry is critical. The Campus gathered some of the leading universities around the world to collaborate on demonstrating in what way the academic sector will contribute to addressing the industry’s demand for change, while also showcasing exciting opportunities available within the maritime sector. It was a success start and will be further developed with our main Campus partner WMU towards Nor-Shipping 2025.
Marek Grzybowski: Conferences are an integral part of Nor Shipping. Offshore Wind, Maritime Hydrogen Conference, International Ship Autonomy and Sustainability Summit, Nor-Shipping Offshore Aquaculture, TradeWinds Shipowners Forum were complemented by Technical Seminars and Blue Talks. There were separate meetings at the positions of companies and clusters, such as Maritime CleanTech Festival 2023 at Nor-Shipping. How did these forms of knowledge exchange and building partnerships in the assessment business work?
Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping:
To make an event-week like Nor-Shipping a success, you need the combination of and right balance on exciting exhibition halls, a solid range of social networking opportunities and a great variety of knowledge sharing activities. We have focused a lot on building relations with key industry clusters with expertise within the ocean space and together with these important clusters, introduced several new content initiatives this year. In addition to the traditional Ocean Leadership Conference and Blue Talks that has been growing in quality and impact over the past few editions of Nor-Shipping, we introduced the first Offshore Aquaculture Conferences, the first Offshore Wind conference, the second Maritime Hydrogen Conference, the Fourth International Autonomy Summit, 53 different technical seminars, topical seminars on Singapore and Brazil and a lot more. Combined they attracted a lot of interesting delegates and discussions and are activities that will remain and be developed in the Nor-Shipping agenda going forward!
Marek Grzybowski: An extremely important event is the Nor-Shipping Awards. A group of experts faces a difficult choice of innovative solutions that have a business perspective at the same time. An additional difficulty that had to be taken into account when awarding the trophy was the effectiveness of innovation in the energy transformation and the development of ecological maritime transport. How do you think the experts coped with the challenge of selecting the innovative Nor Shipping 2023 awards? Have they managed to choose solutions that will set future trends in the development of environmentally friendly transport?
Sidsel Norvik, Director, Nor-Shipping:
The Nor-Shipping awards are always a focal point for those interested in identifying the projects, innovations and talents set to define the future of the maritime industry.
This year’s competing fields were both large and very high quality, leaving our experts with some tough decisions, and very heated debates. The winners of the three Nor-Shipping 2023 awards were the Swedish/Danish tanker operator Terntank, wind power pioneer AlfaWall Oceanbird and Bound4Blue Co-founder and COO Cristina Aleixendri Munoz. I’d like to wish all three the warmest congratulations on their wins. It’ll be fascinating to see the impact they can have in the years to come.
Marek Grzybowski: I congratulate the Nor Shipping 2023 team on a well-organized meeting of the ocean business and everyone interested in the development of the blue economy. Thank you for your answers.
Thank you, Marek!
