Maritime Giants Launch Competition to Drive Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Six giants in the global maritime industry have joined forces to address diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) issues.

The Maritime Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Innovation Lab 2022, launched by Thome Group, Hafnia, Anglo American, RightShip, Rio Tinto, and Wilhelmsen, is an open competition for interested participants (individuals, institutions, companies, students etc.) to submit their ideas on addressing DEI in the maritime industry.

Shortlisted teams will participate in the innovation lab to hone their pitches in preparation for a ‘Dragon’s Den’ session with industry leaders. The winning team and their idea will be brought to life with collaboration and funding from the partner organizations involved.

With women representing only 1.2% percent of the global seafarer workforce (BIMCO/ICS 2021 Seafarer Workforce Report), and a significant lack of ethnic and female representation in senior roles (Diversity Study Group 2021), the maritime sector lags when it comes to attracting and retaining the talent required to succeed in the face of increasing uncertainty and complexity.

The aim of the innovation lab is to uncover powerful ideas through crowdsourcing and applying rapid and agile methodology from ideation through to product development.

This year’s competition follows the Women in Maritime Lab 2020 which resulted in the creation of SeaCode, a platform offering peer to peer support to seafarers whilst gathering and aggregating industry data. Recently, SeaCode was incorporated within the ISWAN organization.

In announcing this year’s program, Jamie Morgan Ramsamy, Head of HSSEQ at Thome Group, said diversity, equity & inclusion within the industry could not be more important, stressing that it was up to industry stakeholders to start to embrace new ideas and ways of thinking as the industry innovates to meet the demands of the future.

“Diversity is more than just gender and we are very excited to be part of this industry push behind the Maritime Diversity, Equity (DEI) & Inclusion Lab. We look forward to working with our partners and participants on the project and to see these very exciting ideas coming through to fruition,” he said.