28 Feb Recap: 1st Logistics & Fintech Meetup
RECAP: 1st Logistics & Fintech Meetup at Prodock Amsterdam
On Tuesday 21st February we successfully held the very first Logistics & Fintech Meetup at Prodock Amsterdam. It was an energetic and interactive evening with attendees from both the logistics and fintech world, plus presentations from the Port of Amsterdam, TransDocLink, and Factuur Voldaan.
This year Holland FinTech and Dinalog have joined hands in an exciting initiative exploring the impact of fintech innovations on the logistics sector. In addition to collaborating on a number of research deliverables, Dinalog and Holland FinTech have planned a number of Meetup events aimed at fostering new connections & knowledge sharing between the two industries. Tuesday the 21st of February marked the first of these Meetups, this time held at Prodock in Amsterdam. Professionals from the Dutch logistics sector, plus an array of members from the fintech community, joined us to discuss innovations that are intersecting these two worlds.
The meetup kicked off with a welcome speech from Dinalog Director Prof. Dr. Albert Veenstra. Dr Veenstra outlined the objectives of this new Logistics & Fintech initiative for our Meetup guests, and gave everyone a sneak peak of the events that are still to come during 2017. In addition, he went into a bit more detail describing some of the work Dinalog is currently involved in exploring blockchain applications in logistics. Following this introduction, Holland FinTech representative Gijs Pel briefly addressed the audience before our guest speakers were invited to pitch.
Port of Amsterdam Innovation Manager Jan Egbertsen gave the first pitch of the afternoon. He enthusiastically outlined the ways that the Port of Amsterdam is currently working to combine logistical and financial settlement in order to enable trade. Jan’s presentation touched upon a number of topics, including blockchain for supply chain finance solutions, possibilities to employ big data, IoT, machine learning, and so forth toward optimizing processes. Following the pitch, Jan fielded questions from the very engaged audience; and, for a brief moment, a debate around data privacy and regulation ensued.
Robert Blanken from TransDocLink was the next to present. TransDocLink offers a platform where buyers and sellers can meet to arrange and schedule payments with reliable partner banks, and arrange and track logistics via trusted logistical partners, thus coupling the physical and financial supply chain to facilitate trade. Robert’s presentation also garnered a lot of follow-up questions from our audience. Although attendees were highly engaged, our moderator unfortunately was forced to cut the question and answer session short, in order to keep on schedule for the final pitch of the evening.
The evening was rounded off with a final pitch by Benjamin Westdorp from Dutch fintech scale-up FactuurVoldaan. FactuurVoldaan is an innovator within the traditional financial industry. It uses AI and machine learning algorithms and technology to support its clients – SMEs. FactuurVoldaan offers services to SMEs within the logistics sector and uses an invoice driven approach that enables it to generate more liquidity with less handling. Benjamin let everyone know that FactuurVoldaan is eager to gain new clients within the logistics sector before inviting questions.
To draw an end to the evening, moderator Gijs Pel invited guests to share thoughts & opinions on the evening, and to offer input toward topics of interest for our upcoming in-depth roundtables. Likewise, the audience was given the opportunity to discuss potential challenges facing logistics and fintech, based on the cases presented. Finally, attendees were informed about dates of upcoming logistics and fintech events before rounding off the evening with networking and drinks. The first collaborations have already been forged – FactuurVoldaan, for instance, h as arranged to collaborate on work with the Rotterdam School of Management that will focus on the logistics sector.
It was a very successful start to this Logistics & Fintech initiative, with special thanks to the efforts of Dinalog & Holland FinTech, host ProDock Amsterdam, and our guest speakers from the Port of Amsterdam, TransDocLink, and FactuurVoldaan. Thanks again to everyone who took part in the event, and we hope to see you at our next Logistics & Fintech Meetup on April 20th.
Upcoming Logistics & Fintech Programme 2017