It is with great pleasure and excitement that we announce that the final event of the STEAM project took place on June 28th, 2022, at Tassos Papadopoulos amphitheater of the Cyprus University of Technology.

The project coordinator is the Cyprus University of Technology and the consortium of the project includes the Cyprus Ports Authority, the Cyprus Association of Shipping Agents, the private companies Tototheo Maritime, A.T. DeLevant Business Solutions, and Cyprus Subsea Consulting and Services, as well as the RISE Research Institutes from Sweden as a Foreign Research Organization. Also, very important is the participation as associated stakeholders of organizations from the maritime sector in Cyprus, such as the Cyprus Chamber of Shipping and the Maritime Institute of Eastern Mediterranean (Mar.In.E.M.), as well as the private companies operating at the Port of Limassol: DP WORLD Limassol, EUROGATE Limassol Container Terminal and P&O Maritime.

The overall objective of STEAM has been to effectively manage maritime traffic in the Eastern Mediterranean in terms of safety and environmental sustainability and more specifically to develop Port of Limassol to become:

• A world-class transshipment and information hub adopting modern digital technologies brought to the maritime sector, and
• A driver for short sea shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean through enhanced services based on standardized ship and port connectivity.

Towards this end, the ports of Cyprus, and especially the Port of Limassol has played a vital role due to its strategic location, as an information hub, exchanging information with both nearby ports and ships in the Eastern Mediterranean area for optimizing the ships’ routes, expanding the planning horizon for port operations, and avoiding possible dangers. The geographical location of Cyprus encourages the use of Cyprus ports as transshipment hubs for short sea shipping. In the STEAM project, the implementation of the STM concept has been significantly extended and enhanced by the successful testbed conducted at the Port of Limassol through the further development of Port CDM, which enables real-time situation awareness to all participants involved in maritime activities in the ports of Cyprus. Moreover, the Port of Limassol has been modernized with innovative technological solutions and advanced data analytics providing new decision-support tools and services for maritime stakeholders.

The final event of the project was attended by more than 50 people (28 of them in person, while another 22 people were able to remotely attend through live streaming). The event opened with greetings from Dr. Andreas Kouspos (STEAM project manager), and Mr. Yiannis Efstratiou, the Senior Marine Surveyor at the Department of Merchant Shipping, followed by two invited talks by Professor Mikael Lind (RISE) and the Assistant Professor Herodotos Herodotou from the Deoartment of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering and Informatics from Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). Next, all the STEAM partners had the chance to present their role and contributions in the project. More specifically, presentations were given by Mr. Stelios Colombos (VTS operator from the Cyprus Ports Authority), Mr. Lefteris Kouzapas (Director of Cyprus Shipping Association), Mr. Andreas Chrysostomou, (CSO of Tototheo Maritime Ltd and CEO of MarineFields Holdings Ltd), Mr. Aris Televantos and Mr. Aidan Worth (Director and Solutions Architect, respectively, of Delevant Business Solutions), and Ms. Rana Abualhaiaja (Environmental Manager of Cyprus Subsea Consulting and Services C.S.C.S.).

A reception followed the event.

The full recording of the event can be accessed by pressing the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Om9BEZgJQkU&ab_channel=HerodotosHerodotou.

For more information see https://steam.cut.ac.cy/.

For any further questions please contact: michalis.michaelides@cut.ac.cy

Michalis Michaelides, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering and Informatics