The keys in their hands
The #NexGenLeaders competition launched early this year (see also page 5 of ITJ 7-8 / 2019) reached its grand finale at the Air Cargo Europe trade fair in Munich. Its success will benefit the entire industry, according to the organiser, the ECS Group.
For years members of the supply chain have complained that the airfreight industry has been missing the innovation train, and that it still operates as it previously did many years ago. Now the ECS Group, a global GSSA that has already been blowing fresh winds through the industry for some time, has opened the doors to members of the younger generation, with no less than 1,000 participants bringing their ideas into the first #NexGenLeaders challenge. “The figure exceeded our expectations by quite a bit,” ECS Group CEO Adrien Thominet told the assembled international media at the celebration in Munich. The initiative’s ten finalists were presented and the winners honoured at the gala evening of Air Cargo Europe, the world’s most important air cargo event.
In the employee category Spain’s Jonatan Jiménez Aceituno won the jury’s approval with his ‘Cargo Assistant’, a tool that comes recommended as “Alexa for forwarders, airlines and GSAs.”
‘Clive – The Selfie App, co-founded by Niall van de Wouw, won the competition for start-ups. It has used volume and weight data from 19 participating airlines to transmit a detailed load factor analysis of the previous week every Wednesday since 29 May this year. It can thus provide much faster and more precise data than even Iata can, for example.
Rutger Smulders received the award in the student category. The scholar, who studies at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands and who has already gathered experience at Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo, collaborated with Champ Cargosystems and Dropslab to develop an AR solution for warehouse operations. Whilst speaking to the ITJ Smulders described his work as a hobby, but the digitalisation of work processes, from the acceptance of freight to the palletisation of the goods, promises to provide an hefty increase in efficiency for everyday airfreight operations.
