Port of Castellón to Host 3rd Smart Ports Chair Conference on November 5

More than 130 professionals linked to the Spanish port ecosystem have confirmed their attendance at the 3rd Smart Ports Chair Conference, to be held on Thursday, November 5, at the Port of Castellón under the title 'Smart Ports in Action: Building the Ports of the Future'. The event is jointly organized by the Port Authority of Castellón, the Universitat Jaume I and the Fundación PortCastelló, with the support of Puertos del Estado and sponsorship from GMV, and is close to reaching full capacity.

The conference will be opened by the chairman of PortCastelló, Rubén Ibáñez, with a presentation by the director of the Smart Ports Chair, Francisco Toledo. The Head of the Digitalization Department at Puertos del Estado, Fernando Manzano, will address port digitalization, data governance and interoperability, while the Director of Resilience and Continuity Services at GMV, Ángel García-Madrid, will cover cybersecurity and the NIS2, CER and AI Act directives for port protection. This session will be closed by Jorge Sánchez, Head of Business, Development, Security and Resilience at ETRA, who will present solutions aimed at decarbonization and the security of port systems.

The director of PortCastelló, Manuel J. García, will moderate a panel dedicated to three projects financed by the Ports 4.0 Capital Fund of Puertos del Estado that are already fully operational. These are Machsense, developed by Becsa together with the Port Authorities of Castellón and Bilbao, Ube, bp and Tecnalia; NextPort Operational Digital Twin, a SaaS platform that integrates data from a port area for descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytical capabilities; and MOLA, promoted by the Colegio Oficial de Agentes de Aduanas y Representantes de Aduanas de Barcelona (COACAB). Taking part in this panel will be Christian Abarca, from Becsa; Manuel Martínez de Ubago, from NextPort; and Mercè Coscolla and Ramón Marco, from COACAB.

After a break, the agenda will continue with three sessions devoted to the results of the self-assessment carried out by the 11 Port Authorities taking part in the Smart Ports Chair Think Tank, based on more than 160 items across the six areas of the UNE 178110 standard. The panels, focused on Interoperability and Digital Platform, Sustainability and Customer Experience, and Governance and Connected Port, will feature representatives from the Port Authorities of Huelva, Castellón, Sevilla, Baleares, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Valencia, Gijón and Alicante, among others, as well as Puertos del Estado and the Chair itself.

The director of the Smart Ports Chair, Francisco Toledo, explained that the three panels on smart port levels will feature representatives from Port Authorities covering virtually all of the peninsula's coastal areas, providing a comprehensive view of the state of smart ports in Spain. According to Toledo, the self-assessment analysis will make it possible to identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement, information he considers valuable for making the UNE 178110 standard, promoted by Puertos del Estado, certifiable.