Bio: Zoran Lajic is the Head of Fleet Performance at the Angelicoussis Group. His accomplished engineering career reflects 25 years of experience in fleet performance & energy efficiency, newbuilding optimization and other shipping related fields.

He has been involved in many practical and research projects, both as a specialist and as a manager.

Before joining the Angelicoussis Group, he worked a number of years with A.P. Moller – Maersk (Maersk Maritime Technology) as a General Manager / Lead Performance Analyst.

Zoran holds a PhD degree in Maritime Engineering from Technical University of Denmark.

Bio: Sotirios Spanos is working for Neptune Lines and Neptune Dry Management as Commercial Operator. He is actively involved in vessels’ operational performance analysis and reporting and fleet digitalisation. He among others is responsible for analysis and reporting on defined KPIs, freight market intelligence and reporting and emission reports’ preparation, verification and submission. He has studied Maritime Economics and Management at the Piraeus University and Shipping, Trade and Finance at Bayes Business School.

Bio: Master Mariner with more than 20 years of experience in the maritime industry. Lean Six Sigma Black Belt, MBA from IE Business School Madrid with an entrepreneurial mindset. Pankaj has wide international exposure ranging from performance optimization, digital applications to strategic management. Pankaj has successfully lead Columbia’s Performance Optimization Control Room (POCR) to a widely recognized industry leader of performance services. He is now leading Columbia Group’s ambitious plans for ground breaking digital platform ‘Project PANGIA’.

Bio: Since 2004 Takis Varelas is Danaos Research Center Director. He is scientific coordinator or package leader in 40 EU research projects, author of four books and 80 papers, guest speaker in workshops and invited lecturer from universities globally. He majored in chemistry, data metrics, operational research, information and management science. Takis was a Professor of AI and MIS in Technical University of Crete,Technical manager of Unisystems, and CIO at Thenamaris.

Bio: Frank joined Bernhard Schulte’s ship-owning arm in Hamburg, working up to the position of Technical Manager, supervising the fleet’s technical operations. Apart from newbuilding projects, he worked heavily towards introducing measures to improve the fleet’s fuel consumption and energy management through a series of design modifications and retrofit installations.

In early 2016 Frank moved back to Athens and joined the group’s ship management arm, BSM. In 2017 he founded the BSM Fleet Performance Centre, whose mission is to deliver industry leading operational efficiency and reliability through advanced analytics.

Frank holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Marine Engineering and Electrical Power Technology from Newcastle University, as well as a Master’s degree in Shipping, Trade and Finance from Cass Business School. He is a Chartered Engineer and a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering Science and Technology.

Andreas Brekke, CEO, Miros Mocean
Bio: A strategist and business developer by trade, Miros Mocean CEO Andreas Brekke has spent more than two decades honing his craft within the spheres of technology and energy. With his background as CEO of Miros, experts in wave technology, he paves the way for Miros Mocean a disruptive vessel performance optimisation platform with the aim to disrupt the performance inefficiencies of the shipping industry.

Bio: Sandith Thandasherry, Founder CEO at Oceanix, has more than 20 year experience in naval architecture. He worked in many countries worldwide including as South Korea. He came back to India and started this company in 2018.

12:30 How sensor data can improve ship performance modeling and create additional fuel savings
Casimir will focus on why sensor data is a must. He will explain how ship performance modeling can be improved by combining sensor data with physics-informed machine learning. Also, how improved ship performance models can create additional fuel savings.
Casimir Morobé, Founder, Toqua

Bio: Casimir founded Toqua in 2020 after writing his Master's Dissertation on how the combination of sensor data & machine learning could improve ship performance modeling.

With a background in business and machine learning, he is determined to bring the fuel-saving potential of better ship performance modeling technology to all ships across the industry.

14:00 The journey of operational ship propulsion performance improvements
New environmental and emission requirements put pressure on operating a vessel as green as possible. But how to get there? How to improve the sailing of a vessel, which sensors to add and data to collect? What will it bring, and what is the operational impact? Accurate data is needed to find an answer to these complex set of questions and base decisions on. And here the journey starts for proper monitoring and measuring of the vessels propulsion performance. Erik will discuss various levels of this journey. How to translate data into actions. Which hardware (sensors, data collection systems), and software solutions (monitoring dashboards) are advised, and which maturity level and experience of the vessel performance department is requested. All of the above will be supported by actual vessel data and experiences of VAF customers.
Erik van Ballegooijen, Director R&D, VAF Instruments

Bio: Erik van Ballegooijen, Director R&D of VAF Instruments, is responsible for VAF sensor development, software application development, and for providing customer consultancy on ship propulsion performance. Latest development projects are the VAF ShaPoLi solution and the VAF high frequent data collection solution IVY, covering the ships propulsion performance. Van Ballegooijen holds 2 Master degrees in Engineering. After graduation he worked for 18 years at Wärtsilä Propulsion, and started as a ship propeller designer (hydrodynamicist). Since 2001 he headed several operational engineering, project management and R&D departments. Since 2015 he is the Director R&D of VAF Instruments and part of the VAF management team.

Capt. Pankaj Sharma,
Group Director Digital Performance Optimisation,
Columbia Shipmanagement

Juan Jose Gil,
CEO and Executive Director Singapore,
Aventra Group

Bio: Juan is a transformation leader with 10+ years of experience working both horizontally and vertically within organizations to streamline processes, boost productivity, and eliminate waste. Juan has led complex multi-million-dollar projects with global footprints in different roles in Multinational companies. His obsession is always value creation, streamlining processes, and technology monetization.

He is also a Digital Thought Leader in Maritime and Agribusiness with experience in Data Orchestration, Digital Fleet Management, Advanced Analytics, AI & ML, IoT, Edge Computing, among others.

Frank Paleokrassas,
Head of Data Governance & Analytics,
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement

Frank Paleokrassas,
Head of Data Governance & Analytics,
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement

Marilena S. Apostolidou,
Performance & Compliance Manager,
Eurobulk

Bio: Over the last two years, as a Compliance Manager and the last 6 years in the Technical field both in Eurobulk Ltd, Marilena S. Apostolidou is fully responsible for the monitoring, measuring and reporting of the quantities of the exhaust emissions and other data related to environmental compliance for all Company’s Vessels. Also, she evaluates, selects and reports the performance of all ships and prepares analytics on Vessels’ emissions. Moreover, the follow-up on developments regarding the new environmental regulations, alternate fuels, etc. and the smooth and proactive compliance to the new challenges in the Maritime sector regarding the environment are both part of her daily work. Marilena holds MBA from the Department of Business Administration -Total Quality Management and a bachelor from the Department of Shipping / Maritime Studies, both at Piraeus University. She has recently graduated from a postgraduate course (Msc) at the University of West Attica in Naval architecture and Marine Engineering which has helped her to improve her understanding in vessels’ technical aspects and requirements.

Dimitra Konstantinou,
Energy Efficiency and Performance Engineer,
Angelicoussis Group

Sotirios Spanos,
Commercial Operator,
Neptune Lines

Andreas Doulgeridis,
Performance & Data Analysis Specialist,
Metis Cyberspace Technology

Bio: Andreas Doulgeridis is a Mechanical Engineer graduated from the University of Patras while he is also an MSc graduate in Marine Engineering from the University of Southampton, where he got involved with IoT and maritime robotics. His expertise stems from the experience he has gained working for shipping companies where he oversaw monitoring and application of PMS, inspections on board, preparation of specifications and overview of vessels in Dry Dock. His intrigue in innovative technologies urged him to get deeply involved in the development of applications and tools that combine big data analytics and maritime business know-how to provide solutions for the maritime industry.

Sandith Thandasherry,
CEO,
Oceanix

Marius Suteu,
Director of Customer Success,
i4 Insight

Bio: Marius is the Director of Customer Success and Routing Services within i4 Insight and the Director of Customer Success in the Fleet Optimization services of Lloyd’s Register. He is responsible for supporting customers in their journey with i4 Insight and ensuring that each customer achieves their goals. Marius has worked in the maritime industry for the last 15+ years, with a proven record of managing large business units as well as product portfolios, focused on addressing some of the key needs of the shipping market with hardware, software, and managed services.

Dimitris Papathanasiou,
Data Scientist,
Angelicoussis Group

Bio: Dimitris Papathanasiou works at Fleet Performance department. He is the Statistician with MSc in big data and analytics applying mathematics, statistics, machine learning and data analytics. Focusing on data processing, data modelling, and business intelligence. He has deployed ML models for demand forecasting, event prediction and mechanical engineering projects.

Dimitra Konstantinou,
Energy Efficiency and Performance Engineer,
Angelicoussis Group

Andreas Brekke,
CEO,
Miros Motion