The technology group Wärtsilä has been awarded first prize in the United Nations’ AIS Big Data Hackathon, which took place in early September 2020, the company said in its release. Altogether, teams from 17 organisations were selected to participate in the event, with Wärtsilä being the only multinational corporation to have its application for participation accepted. The remaining selected participants were teams from world renowned research institutes and leading universities.
The event was aimed at developing innovative and viable means for utilising big data to combat either the Covid-19 pandemic or climate change. Wärtsilä’s decision to tackle climate change came as a result of its long-standing commitment to reducing shipping’s carbon footprint, and its stated purpose in supporting sustainable societies with smart technology.
The Wärtsilä team, named ‘Blue Carbon’, developed a model for attributing the CO2 emissions from vessels to the geographical location of the ships based on their AIS (Automatic Identification System) locations. The model supports the creation of a global map, identifying both the geographical concentrations and the build-up over time of CO2 emissions from shipping. This will enable environmental policy making to be based on factual evidence, allowing greater input from national and regional authorities to support the IMO’s regulatory efforts.
The event was jointly organised by the United Nations Statistics Division, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, and the UN Global Pulse. The winning Wärtsilä team will attend the UN World Data Forum in Bern, Switzerland in 2021 to present their work and receive the award.
Wärtsilä in brief
Wärtsilä is a global leader in smart technologies and complete lifecycle solutions for the marine and energy markets. By emphasising sustainable innovation, total efficiency and data analytics, Wärtsilä maximises the environmental and economic performance of the vessels and power plants of its customers. In 2019, Wärtsilä’s net sales totalled EUR 5.2 billion with approximately 19,000 employees. The company has operations in over 200 locations in more than 80 countries around the world. Wärtsilä is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.