Maritime Blockchain Labs (MBL), founded by blockchain technology and governance experts BLOC and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, has announced the establishment of a consortium that will pilot a blockchain-based seafarer certification system.
The project aims to streamline and expedite processes that can be marred by a lack of verification for safety documentation, paper-based certificate management and a lack of access to validated safety and training certifications of seafarers. These factors can lead to significant issues for crew management agencies, ship operators, regulatory and port authorities for securing and insuring crew.
The second of three demonstrator projects funded by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF), this consortium brings together multiple stakeholders who either rely on, or support crew certification. These include shipping companies for whom crewing is an essential concern, including the world’s largest shipping logistics company, Maersk, leading commercial tanker operator Heidmar, aiming to show the importance of crew in the smooth commercial operations of vessels, and PTC Holdings Corp., who represent crew management and training associations. Also included are technology enablers with expertise in fleet management and certification such as provider of cloud-based fleet management solutions Hanseaticsoft, maritime platforms providers Navozyme and C-LOG, as well as international seafarer welfare charity The Mission to Seafarers.
The demonstrator scope will focus on an end-to-end demonstration of a digital certification and endorsement process utilizing a digital repository for verified crew documentation, training logs and approval system. Specifically, the focus will be upon the STCW certificate issuance and relevant supporting documentation from engineering officers located in multiple jurisdictions and the endorsement of recognition from a maritime authority for vessel embarkation and disembarkation.
Upon validation and scaling, the final solution would enable individual seafarers to manage their certificate repository from original issuance, for maritime administrations to manage the renewal and endorsement across jurisdictions, for crew management organizations to manage seafarers for crewing of vessels and for vessel owners to receive an overview of their crew, certificates and endorsements.