We were treated today to a presentation from our very own Jo Douglas’s son, Mark, who works for Starboard Maritime Intelligence. Mark provided an entertaining and topical outline of his company’s business and of particular interest, an update on maritime difficulties arising from the current Straits Hormuz situation.
Mark Douglas – Starboard Maritime Intelligence
We were treated today to a presentation from our very own Jo Douglas’s son, Mark, who works for Starboard Maritime Intelligence. Mark provided an entertaining and topical outline of his company’s business and of particular interest, an update on maritime difficulties arising from the current Straits Hormuz situation.
Essentially as suggested in its name his company provides a wide range of businesses and government agencies with real time actionable intelligence of maritime threats before they escalate.
Every ship of a significant size has a transmitter/receiver initially developed to prevent maritime collisions, now used to monitor ship movements. Although as Mark explained not all vessels turn these on all the time and these are the very vessels of most interest.
Staggeringly they monitor 300 million vessel positions keeping an eye on over 250,000 vessels of particular interest to their clients. As such they help support safer maritime trade, monitor fishery activities, drug agency enforcement, a wide range of defense needs, environmental data etc. The list of how they can be used is endless. One simple example was with the recent gypsy moth infestation they were able to (back)track the vessel that was likely to have transported the bug to NZ.
Much of its current work is in the oil and gas industries and involves monitoring and protecting seabed cables, a critical infrastructure for global communication.
Starboard started out in life with government support and backing and of recent times has raised funds necessary for its development from private investors predominantly from overseas which in itself raises some interesting questions. The company’s strength in addition to its people relies on its software as its strategic advantage. Naturally the protection of this software from outside bad actors is of vital importance.
Mark provided us with an update of current maritime risks. None of these risks exist in isolation with maritime traffic being significantly affected by the current position in the Straits of Hormuz.
A nice closing touch was Jo winning the raffle prize which Mark passed on to her as his Mother’s Day gift for this Sunday. All heart and I hope there is more to follow.