Without prejudice!
by John Faraclas
I confess that I have attended quite a number of technical committee meetings organised by various marine related institutions and class societies alike. However, I have to admit that the subject one, which took place last night at the Margi hotel was simply the best of the best.
Surely, it doesn’t take a PhD to organise a successful corporate event, yet ABS’s Dr Chris Leontopoulos surely knows how to listen to the engineers’ beat quite well. The meeting was “feedbacked” as “short and sweet”, deeply technical yet high-level, theoretical and practical, hence all perfectly balanced. ABS staff present in the room, ready to answer the most exotic regulatory questions by the most demanding ABS clients: 40 Greek engineering managers and directors of the most prominent Greek shipping companies.
Decarbonisation technologies, regulatory updates, simulation state of the art practices, and a most interesting historic technological flashback from The Royal Institution of Naval Architects.
And as if all the above were not enough, Dr Leontopoulos wore the Oculus glasses and embarked on a live Virtual Reality innovative engine room design guidance tour, using mixed reality technology. This brought me back to London when we presented TUAS’ MarISOT application with special VR Headset glasses.
The live electronic technical poll complimented the very interactive character of this Committee meeting. The results were equally most interesting. Who said that technical committee meetings have to be boring?
One hour fast forward, I find myself sitting by the swimming pool of the Margi hotel in Vouliagmeni, socialising with marine engineers and colleagues from shipping companies and ABS and enjoying my Pavlova dinner desert under the sunset.
What more can one ask for from a Classification Society’s technical committee meeting?
