Earlier in the month I visited Athens, Greece, for Posidonia 2024. This year’s conference was the busiest edition yet, with nearly 33,000 attendees from 130 countries. As one of the premier events on the maritime calendar, Posidonia has the power to make a real impact on our industry. Key themes this year included decarbonisation, alternative fuels, data-driven performance and – as we hoped – crew welfare and investments in the 'human element'.

VIKAND shared display space with our partner, Navarino, enjoying strong foot traffic and excellent cross-pollination of potential customers. Katerina Liaki, Navarino’s business development manager, positioned her company’s connectivity solutions hand-in-hand with VIKAND’s total healthcare solution.

As more and more ships turn to remote health solutions, strong satellite internet that can support large data transfers will become a critical vessel feature. This creates opportunities for VIKAND, as many ship operators are currently adopting or evaluating a multi satellite constellation strategy, so the time is optimum.

Crews, managers and owners face a web of interconnected challenges that a total healthcare solution can help alleviate. In fact, every level of a maritime organisation can benefit from strong mental and physical healthcare resources.

Owners see fewer accidents, injuries, medical claims, legal issues and hits to productivity, while crew managers have fewer problems to document and handle. For crew members, maritime work requires focus and resilience, and being far from home for months at a time negatively impacts both concentration and motivation. However, a total healthcare solution provides tools to make living and working at sea a happier and healthier experience.

At a V.Group event on day one of Posidonia, Peter Schellenberger and I introduced VIKAND to senior shipping executives, all of whom were quite receptive to the platform. The following day at the Captain’s table event, we watched 26 startups make five-minute pitches. It was a refreshing format, but most of the ideas were technical innovations, leaving plenty of opportunity for more crew-focused startup concepts.

At the Navarino event on night two, we publicly announced Peter’s new role as a senior advisor for VIKAND, and on the final night, Ocean Technologies Group hosted a great event where attendees showed strong interest in VIKAND’s unique approach to crew wellbeing.

Overall, it was great to meet so many people interested in OneHealth by VIKAND, but growing interest in crew health has led to increasing competition. There are now more companies than ever moving into the maritime healthcare space, so we must continue innovating and creating value-added partnerships in order to stay top-of-mind.

Shining examples here are the newly announced Riverr AI and Scoutbase partnerships, which would enable VIKAND to stay the absolute thought leader in the remote healthcare market as it allows us to make the logical next step from proactive healthcare to predictive healthcare for the maritime industry.

In this edition of Pulse, delve into new ultrasound regulations and what this means for the cruise industry, discover the critical role of fatigue support in safe vessel operations, and learn about VIKAND’s new strategic partnership with Riverr AI.