The COVID-19 pandemic has caused many innovation projects to be put on hold or cancelled. This has dealt a serious blow to a lot of entrepreneurs who had just started out, as well as established businesses in Rotterdam’s port area. After all, a lot of local potential is going untapped during this hiatus – while investing in a strong, future-proof port is actually more important than ever. That is why PortXL will be launching the new innovation programme MATCH. Its objective? To initiate 100 innovative pilot projects in the port of Rotterdam over the course of the next year, in partnership with the local private sector. Bringing existing businesses and start-ups together creates new opportunities to introduce innovations that can help make the port of Rotterdam cleaner, more sustainable and smarter.

Now’s the time for innovation

As Europe’s largest sea port, the port of Rotterdam serves as a vital hub for numerous global cargo flows. Nevertheless, the Covid-19 pandemic continues to put a damper on world trade, and some market players have become very hesitant to make large investments in response to the crisis. However, to enable the port economy to swiftly recover from this ‘Covid dip’, it is important to invest in innovative solutions that help create an even smarter and more competitive port – now more than ever. Actively bringing the port’s private sector in touch with innovative start-ups will allow us to test and implement new technologies, sophisticated automation solutions and other new applications.

PortXL

The MATCH innovation project is an initiative of PortXL. This accelerator programme has been working since 2015 to help entrepreneurs in the port area bring new innovations to market. Having already built up a worldwide network of over 4,000 innovative entrepreneurs, PortXL can find a solution to virtually every problem. PortXL helps innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups ‘get on the radar’ of companies that want to improve their processes. For start-ups, finding the right opening at a potential client and starting up novel projects can be a time-consuming and often expensive undertaking. And established firms in turn can benefit from the swift inception of innovative projects, since this allows them to increase the efficiency of their operations and save costs.

MATCH

Over the course of 2021, working in partnership with the port’s business community, PortXL aims to launch 100 innovative pilot projects within the MATCH innovation programme. Companies can submit their specific market challenges to PORTXL, which will then go in search of potential solutions and bring the companies in touch with one or more members of their global innovation network.

Participation in the programme is free. Interested firms can apply by sending an email to match@portxl.org(link sends e-mail) or by submitting their query via the online MATCH tool.