Last week, Barbara Rzepka, Edgar Fusté, Josep Lluís Sala and Xavier Torret from BGEO staff traveled to Gdańsk (Poland) to participate in the first meeting of the CORAL project consortium, composed by SeaData (Gdańsk), Water Robotics (Montpellier) and BGEO (Barcelona). The aim of this meeting was to put in common ground the first steps of the project, to plan new ones, to build more confidence and trust with each other.
The consortium has been funded by the GALATEA project on the scope of the Horizon 2020 with 180.000 € with the purpose to develop a large scale demonstrator focused to help marinas and ports to improve their air pollution, water quality management and also to enhance the efficiency managing their resources.
On the first day, we were invited to visit the Port of Gdańsk Authority, the biggest port of Poland, who showed us not only their current facilities, but also their growth plans for the upcoming years. Besides, we held a meeting with the responsible of private operators pollution control who explained us the big challenges they need to overcome on the next years in order to follow the compliance with the EU standards. For that reason, the CORAL project will provide its platform to monitor water and air pollution, but also provide a DSS to help them with their decisions on this area.
On the second day, we held another meeting, this time with the Port of Elbląg Authority, where their CEO, Arkadiusz Zglinski, explained us the big challenges that they are involved on. As a matter of fact, a new big channel is now in construction to communicate the Vistula lagoon with the Gulf of Gdańsk in order to avoid to cross the Russian Border with their marine traffic. According to their work plans for the next years, we will evaluate the possibility to provide some solution using CORAL tech to monitor and control air and water pollution for those works which they are involved on.
Besides those meetings, the teams had the opportunity to really start working together. Moreover, we enjoyed the experience of gaining confidence with each other, while having some beers and tasting delicious Polish meals like Zurek Soup or Pierogi dumplings.
Finally, on the third day, the return was a little bit hard. The first consortium meeting was plenty successful according to the expectations. Good vibrations with each other and no doubt that the work capacity of this consortium is much more than the summation of the work capacity from their small teams, is at least, their product.
We are proud to be on board, and eager to participate in the next meeting which will take place on Montpellier during the third week of January 2022. Meanwhile, all we have to do is to work hard to succeed with our work packages.
Last but not least, we would like to acknowledge the Catalan Water Partnership and Eurecat for their vision, mission and facts concerning this GALATEA Project. Thank you once again!!!