Indian National Shipowners Association’s (INSA) Research & Training Committee organised an online 2^nd Technical Paper Competition on 8th January with the theme Technological Advancements in Maritime sector: Benefits, Challenges & Way Forward.

Mr Sunil Kumar, CTO & Head – T&A Dept, The Great Eastern Shipping Co Ltd on behalf of Research and Training Committee INSA extended a warm welcome to all guests. Mr Anil Devli, CEO, INSA, expressed his gratitude and acknowledged the presence of the dignitaries, candidates from various Maritime Training Institutes for their participation in the competition and the judges for their tremendous efforts in shortlisting the Paper Presentations.

The Chief Guest – Mr Arun Sharma, Executive Chairman, Indian Register of Shipping inaugurated the event. He complimented INSA for this initiative where youngsters are presenting the technical papers, taking interests towards innovations, and thinking out of the box apart from daily routines.

He appreciated INSA for getting the phenomenal response from 17 papers in the first event to 79 papers in second event, in a year. He further mentioned that shipping is at a point of major transition over next 3 decades and major concerns will be compliance of GHG reductions, the decarbonization and adaption of digitalization mode which are both technical and economical in nature.

He expressed his good wishes to INSA and the participants for successful completion of the event and great takeaways from the event.

Dr BK Saxena, Chairman, Research & Training Committee, INSA complimented Mr Sharma for giving the capsule of various aspects of shipping in his short speech. He also mentioned that students present here are highly privileged to hear such kind words from Mr Sharma. He further gave the background of the Paper Presentation Competition held by INSA and provided additional information on the objectives of this event. He expressed his warm welcome to the candidates and wished each one of them all the best for the competition.

Mr David Birwadkar, Advisor/ Head, GEIMS explained the rules and regulations of the event. He expressed his gratitude towards all the dignitaries for marking their presence in the event.

The 1st presenter Aniket Tagadpallewar, Shardul Bendre & Kapil Parab from Tolani Maritime Institute, Pune presented a paper on the topic of Cyber-Security – Regulatory Aspects and Data Theft in Maritime Industry. Then 2^nd presenter Kamal Chauhan and Hrithik Kumar from the Tolani Maritime Institute, Pune also presented the paper on the topic of Cyber-Security- Regulatory Aspects and Data Theft in Maritime Industry. 3^rd team Krishna Prabu and Barnali Maji from the Indian Maritime University, Chennai Campus presented their paper on the topic of EEXI – Energy Efficient options for ships in line with IMO Requirement and Intelligent Engines – Decarbonization of shipping. The 4th presentation was delivered by Menon Pramod and Mithun Moudgal from the Tolani Maritime Institute, Pune who presented paper on the topic of Digital Twin: A Deep Dive into Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Technologies.

At the interval, video on Navik Jeevan was played for the audience. 5th presentation was given by Mr Shubham from B P Marine Academy, Raigad who presented paper on the topic EEXI – Energy Efficient options for ships in line with IMO Requirements. The 6^th presentation was by Shubham Thakur and Param Sharma from the Indian Maritime University, Mumbai Port campus on the topic CO2 Capture and Storage Using Nano Silicates. The 7th and the final presentation was by Shashank Shekhar and Sonu Rajpurohit from The Great Eastern Institute of Maritime Studies, Lonavala on the topic of Intelligent Engine Decarbonization of Shipping Industry.

At the end of each presentation, Q&A session was moderated by Mr Kumar. Questions from the audience based on the presentations were well responded to by the participants. It was heartening to see many thought-provoking questions and the interest, the study generated among the audience.

Dr Sujata Naik, Chairperson, Tolani Shipping, and President, INSA gave concluding remarks. She expressed her immense happiness towards the successful completion of the event hosted by INSA and congratulated the entire team. She further congratulated all 79 teams who submitted their papers in the competition. She appreciated the depth of the work that has been put by all the participants. She also appreciated the confidence of the participants while answering the Q&A session. She expressed sincere gratitude and appreciated the initiatives undertaken by Research and Training Committee, INSA and is looking forward to many such projects to be undertaken in future.

The Judges were Mr Chitta Dash, Mr Dilip Mehrotra and Mr IN Bose. They appreciated the efforts put in by the participants and their confidence while presenting. They mentioned that the quality of the papers presented were of immensely high standards and it was very difficult task for them to shortlist the best among all the submitted papers. They also congratulated all the participants even if they could not make it to final round and expressed their best wishes for a successful career ahead.

Mr Birwadkar announced the results of the competition. The second runner up was Mr Shubham from BP Marine Academy. Mr Shubham Thakur and Mr Param Sharma from the Indian Maritime University, Mumbai Port secured the first runners up position in the competition. Menon Pramod and Mithun Moudgal from the Tolani Maritime Institute, Pune secured the first position in the competition. Mr Birwadkar congratulated all the participants for their hard work and dedication.

Mr Lokanath Tripathy, Head – QST, Greatship India Ltd proposed the vote of thanks.

Marex Media