The Autonomy Journals
The Autonomy Journals showcase leading voices, sharing insights, learnings, lessons and perhaps some confessions from the Autonomy Journey in transport and mobility.
SAMS, a private, non-profit innovation cluster for sustainable, autonomous mobility solutions, host the podcast.
The Autonomy Journals
Navigating the Maritime Giants: How Startups Can Thrive in an Ancient Industry
Imagine an industry so vital that 90% of everything you touch has traveled on it, yet so traditional that innovation often struggles to find a foothold. This is the maritime world that Caitlin Hardy, founder of Nessie, has dedicated her career to transforming.
From her early days building tiny autonomous sailboats at the US Naval Academy to founding a company that helps startups navigate the complex waters of maritime commerce, Hardy brings a refreshing perspective to one of humanity's oldest trades. "I kept seeing a lot of really amazing technology fail, not because the tech wasn't good, but because they weren't sure how to navigate our industry," she explains, revealing the genesis of her mission to bridge Silicon Valley innovation with seafaring tradition.
Hardy takes us through the fascinating evolution of maritime autonomy, from the Nordic-pioneered dynamic positioning systems of the 1970s to today's cutting-edge unmanned vessels. She challenges common misconceptions about automation, arguing that the goal isn't replacing seafarers but making their jobs safer and more manageable. "We ask so much of seafarers today," she notes, pointing to the increasing demands that connectivity has placed on vessel crews who must simultaneously navigate ships and satisfy shoreside management.
The conversation explores how defense innovation, particularly following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has accelerated commercial maritime technology, creating new possibilities for collaboration between startups and established players. Hardy offers valuable insights for maritime decision-makers on evaluating new technologies: "Don't do autonomy just for autonomy's sake. What is the problem that you're trying to fix?"
Whether you're a maritime professional, a tech entrepreneur looking to enter this space, or simply curious about how one of the world's most essential industries is evolving, this episode offers a thoughtful exploration of where tradition meets innovation on the high seas. Listen now to discover why, as Hardy puts it, "the opportunity for growth in maritime, as it relates to innovation, is really unlimited."
The Autonomy Journals showcase leading voices, sharing insights, learnings, lessons and perhaps some confessions from the Autonomy Journey in transport and mobility.
Subscribe to the Autonomy Journals and join us next time as we continue exploring how Norway leads the way in autonomous mobility solutions. Because in Norway, we do it.
SAMS is a private, non-profit innovation cluster for sustainable, autonomous mobility solutions and the host of the podcast.
I kept seeing a lot of really amazing technology fail, not because the tech wasn't good, but because they weren't sure how to navigate our industry.
Arild Tjomsland:Hello and welcome to the Autonomy Journals podcast brought to you by SAMS, the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Autonomous Mobility and Transport Systems. Autonomy In Norway we do it. We are your hosts.
Eja Tuominen:Eja and Aril, I'm leading the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Sustainable Autonomous Mobility Systems.
Arild Tjomsland:And I'm the founder of a small company in the mobility space, Cobra.
Eja Tuominen:The Autonomy Journals is aimed at inviting you into the autonomous universe of new ideas, innovation, great progress and feedback.
Arild Tjomsland:Translating visions and complexities, one interesting conversation at a time, and we'll offer links and resources to autonomy sites and news in the credits.
Eja Tuominen:Today we have our studio at Norshipping, the big trade fair in Norway for Maritime Warm. Welcome to a new episode of the Autonomy Journals. Our guest today is Caitlin Hardy, from US, the founder of Ness C Warm. Welcome, let's start with your personal journey into autonomy. Tell us all about it.
Caitlin Hardy:Thank you so much for hosting me. Always great to be back in Norway. My autonomy journey actually began when I was in university. I studied naval architecture at our Naval Academy in the US, and while I was there, one of our electives was called SailBot, and sailing is probably my first love, so for anything that was an elective related to sailboats, I was all in, and so back then there was a competition internationally that was looking at what we would call small USVs now that were probably only a meter in length, and we went through the whole design iteration from a naval architecture perspective, but then also worked with systems engineers to do the integration.
Caitlin Hardy:Then this was, you know, 2009 or so, looking at how you consider the logic of tacking and, you know, having a physical sail and building everything out of carbon fiber and foam, and I was just fascinated by the dynamics that came into it. And then at the end of the semester we got to do a competition and, you know, compete against others and see how that shook out. So for me I was like, oh, this is the future. You mean, we're going to send these tiny robots across the ocean, and so it was fascinating even back then, looking at what was different in Norway and what was different in Portugal and really starting to see these testbeds of innovation pop up, and it's about something I really craved as I came into industry.
Eja Tuominen:So you have founded your own company quite recently? Yes, can you share the founding story of Nessie?
Caitlin Hardy:So I really started my journey, at least in Norway, as a member of Kongsberg.
Caitlin Hardy:I was really proud for the time that I spent there but running one of the US entities.
Caitlin Hardy:But I kept seeing founders who weren't traditionally from the maritime ecosystem trying to come in with brilliant ideas but really sort of stumble and not know who to approach. So I kept seeing a lot of really amazing technology fail, not because the tech wasn't good but because they weren't sure how to navigate our industry. So our tagline at Nessie is we help companies navigate the elusive to you know, give a shout out to our sea monsters out there. And the goal was really what if we could accelerate innovation to help companies at every point in the value proposition, helping them through product market fit understanding across the different commercial verticals of maritime as well as defense, what's the best place for their product and then how can that translate, sort of horizontally. So the goal is really to be a resource to founders as a team that has been through this in the past and seen a lot of the challenges, to make the most efficient use of the capital and the runway that they have before they run out of time.
Eja Tuominen:That sounds very exciting. It's been fun, so have you succeeded in finding the way further for your first customers.
Caitlin Hardy:So we're not quite a year old and it has been a really fun journey. We're working with companies from whole cleaning robots that work autonomously while underway to companies that are doing radar target classification in real time, starting out in recreational and now working in defense and commercial, to looking at the human element side of operational risk behavior for seafarers and using voice analytics and what does that mean to understand how someone is doing. There's unlimited potential of the value that our industry can leverage. That doesn't necessarily replace people that's not the goal but that makes people safer at sea, that better uses the money that operating companies has and ultimately gives people back more time with their families.
Eja Tuominen:There is an ongoing transition and transformation towards increasing technology on vessels and throughout the entire maritime industry. What are the main movements?
Caitlin Hardy:Autonomy is not necessarily anything new, and AI and autonomy have become such buzzwords I think they're thrown around, probably too liberally for where there are technical definitions, but at large, I would go back to those building blocks of looking at, you know, the 70s of dynamic positioning really coming out of the Nordics here and all those different integrations from a machinery side, but then all the way up to the bridge of looking at situational awareness and how those come together.
Caitlin Hardy:The way up to the bridge of looking at situational awareness and how those come together. And so I think some of the earlier companies we saw on the maritime side were really focused on that situational awareness equation of, you know, do coal regs come into place? Is this something that we need to be considering? How do we navigate if someone's not on the bridge? Or how do we have that assisted mode where we're supporting the decision-making process and reducing you know talk a lot about task saturation how can we reduce all of the things that we're asking of mariners? And so I think that's an area where maritime has come a significant way. I think one of the biggest challenges that we can continue to have and it's exciting to see progress with projects like Reach Subsea is on the machinery automation side. How do we create vessels that can go to sea for potentially months at a time, and what does it mean to service those vessels when they come back?
Eja Tuominen:Development has also been the dual use of technology, the defense side and the civil side. How have you seen this development under your time in maritime?
Caitlin Hardy:There's a few ways we can sort of look at that. But certainly with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, that really accelerated what we saw. On the USV side. I started to see a shift of. You know there were conversations taking place in defense about are we going to have robotic ships, and people sort of scoffed and at least in the US there was so much hesitancy towards robot ships. And so meanwhile the commercial side you know Yara, birkeland and Osco Auto Barge these projects were continuing and are really starting from a sense of working to solve a problem, not autonomy just for the sake of having autonomy.
Caitlin Hardy:But with the invasion of Ukraine and seeing the grit and stick-to-itiveness and iteration cycles that they've had, you're now seeing so many autonomy companies pop up in the US space, in the US, in Britain, we're here at North Shipping and I'm really fascinated by this week is to understand where is the overlap now between commercial and defense? Commercial has been so largely regulated, you know, by the IMO. We look at mass code, we look at the different ways that it's being structured, where in defense we have, I would say, a more open plate.
Eja Tuominen:So would you say that the defense side accelerates the development?
Caitlin Hardy:Absolutely so. For the startups that I'm seeing coming out of the US and out of Europe right now. I think one of the interesting things is around the valuations. In the US, we saw a significant consolidation of traditional primes, traditional defense OEMs, in the 1990s, and so with that there hasn't been maybe the type of innovation that you would see somewhere like Silicon Valley, and so to see more the Silicon Valley style come in and some of these new entrants is really accelerating the curve of what's possible, and I think the way that that translates into commercial maritime is defense, even though the world is moving in a very unpredictable way geopolitically right now. The funding isn't necessarily there. There's hope and there's policymaking that's taking place, but we're not necessarily seeing these USVs being funded to the level that companies would hope for the investments they're making, and so because of that, the dual-use nature means that a lot of these companies are also looking at how do they navigate into the commercial world.
Eja Tuominen:There are more or less autonomous vessels of different sizes sailing in the waters today. Can you provide an overall status? What's going on on the seas?
Caitlin Hardy:I see a lot of companies that have these smaller vessels and they're doing a lot of work around maritime domain awareness and sensing. But it's really an awareness for port security, for doing coastal mapping, things of that nature. As we start to move up, we see more of the work related to, say, inland barges you know the Osco auto barges where you of course still have a human in the loop, you have remote operation centers for all layers, all levels of these types of vessels, and that's a very interesting size because you're also starting to see, on the defense side, vessels that are capable of very high speeds. So we're looking at vessels that are doing, you know, say, 25 to 40 knots, which is moving quite quickly Within the defense side, that sort of small to medium transition On the medium side.
Caitlin Hardy:What I think is fascinating is where we saw the shift of the US government beginning to take offshore supply vessels and convert them into, you know, painting them gray, and so the first one that this happened to was an existing OSV where everything was stripped out and repurposed for military use, and then, through the four or five that were built for what was called the Ghost Overlord Fleet, as they learned, how can these vessels work together. What does this look like? They began to be a bit more purpose built for the systems inside.
Eja Tuominen:In your view, how is innovation and growth connected?
Caitlin Hardy:in maritime. The opportunity for growth in maritime, as it relates to innovation, is really unlimited. We work in an industry that is truly one of the oldest industries, the oldest trades that exist. You know, the average person doesn't really care, but meanwhile 90% of everything in their home and everything they touch is moving by way of a vessel. That we're really just in the infancy of the types of companies that we will see that will disrupt our industry. Overall.
Caitlin Hardy:Covid was a really challenging time, clearly for everyone globally, but I think if there was a positive, as it relates to shipping and maritime, that came out of COVID, it came from the fact that a lot of operating companies that were resistant to digitalization and moving towards that autonomy needle realized that they didn't have to have people visiting their vessels as often, or people on board, or there were ways to tie their operation centers to better utilize the data that was coming off of those vessels. I think we also look at things like Starlink or satellite internet and that amount of data that can then inform operations, and so right now I'd say the growth potential is unlimited, and so I think the sad and negative stories are the ones that get highlighted, but we need to spend more time telling the world about the really exciting things for our industry. And that's critical for the workforce development piece, because there will be no growth and no innovation unless we're able to attract the next generation of talent.
Eja Tuominen:You took up the word disruption. What are we disrupting in maritime?
Caitlin Hardy:I think we should be constantly evolving and figuring out how to disrupt, to make people safer at sea, to make things more efficient, to be friendlier to the environment, to reduce our operating costs. Maritime, for the most part, is very familial. It's been driven by a certain nation, certain parts of the world for thousands of years, and so that disruption is going to come from the outside, of those who may not know our industry but are keen to figure out how to better support it.
Eja Tuominen:The history of disruption. It comes from the outside, not moving within. Right Maritime certainly it's an old industry.
Caitlin Hardy:It is an old industry and I think for Nessie now largely through, say, the changes at IMO around 2030 and 2050, has realized we need all the voices and support that we can get to be able to meet a future that is more sustainable for this industry.
Eja Tuominen:Caitlin, what do you see are the factors that transform the maritime industry towards automation and other innovations?
Caitlin Hardy:I think a lot of people fear automation.
Caitlin Hardy:You know, sadly, in the US there's been a lot of dialogue around ports having hesitation to modernize because unions think that their people will be replaced.
Caitlin Hardy:I really approach it from a probably more of a pessimistic and sad view of there's only six schools in the United States that have naval architecture programs.
Caitlin Hardy:That's not enough.
Caitlin Hardy:Workforce development is the largest prohibitor to being able to grow in a way that benefits everyone on the planet for how global trade works.
Caitlin Hardy:So I think that it's really looking to the generations that are coming up and understanding where they're different and how we can show them that this is an industry that has really meaningful wages, can have a very high quality of life, a really interesting life and a story, but it's figuring out how to tell that story on the workforce development side, and so I see that is the biggest challenge that we have, and so a lot of people who aren't from the industry or aren't dealing with autonomy every day would probably look at it and say, well, workforce development like, aren't you trying to get rid of people?
Caitlin Hardy:And I look at it as more shifting, where people are able to spend time. We ask so much of seafarers today, and as connectivity has increased, the requests from shoreside operations to a vessel has as well, and so you now have masters and leadership on board that is balancing running a vessel and having significant legal responsibility, but also trying to make sure that the office is happy and it's sort of which is it? You have to make sure that you're not overloading people to the point of failure or burnout.
Eja Tuominen:We have mentioned that people are scared of the robot vessels Anything else Lack of collaboration at times.
Caitlin Hardy:That's something that historically, the maritime industry hasn't done well.
Caitlin Hardy:On the commercial side it's looking at commodities.
Caitlin Hardy:So whoever has that edge for being able to move things more efficiently or more quickly or having that intel, is going to be the one that ultimately wins out, and I think that's really where we see a shift that needs to happen.
Caitlin Hardy:Earlier in my career I had spent time at one of the first startups that was looking at maritime machinery failures using AI and ML and one of the biggest challenges there is with operators. They are excited because they can prevent a catastrophe from happening on board. But then you look at the OEM equation and it's not that the OEMs want their equipment to fail, but if you figure out how to extend the life of something, well, what does that mean for the replacement of that certain component later? You know, in a dream world it would be understanding how you can bring more collaboration around data sharing for the mass amounts of data that are being collected so that we can learn from those models, both to figure out how to better drive vessels and optimize, but also so that we're reducing the amount of replacement parts, you know, and spares that we have on board.
Eja Tuominen:You took a lack of or too little collaboration as one of the hindrances. What are good ways of creating collaboration? Tell us how you do it.
Caitlin Hardy:You know, I think with Nessie, we're really here to help support companies because we believe in the larger mission of decreasing emissions, making people safer at sea, reducing costs. I'm seeing this in a lot of the conversations that are starting to emerge in the maritime venture capital markets and that model they're more willing to share together because there's so much risk to go out by yourself, and I think Maritime has a bad, bad habit of trying to do this of, oh well, we'll just build our own software team and we'll just build this application, and it can be hard to attract the best talent when you do that. And so I'm seeing more of a willingness for companies to share data in those types of situations that if they're more willing to share, the actual opportunity for everyone grows and there can be room for, you know, as many players as exist today.
Eja Tuominen:Environmental impact. How can tech make the world a better place?
Caitlin Hardy:There's so much opportunity for tech to make an impact.
Caitlin Hardy:We don't even have to change the technology we have today, just getting to a point where we can optimize things like routes that vessels are traveling on, looking at how long a vessel is sitting outside of a port, right, if there's a lot of congestion that's taking place, and if they're running, you know, on their generators while they're there.
Caitlin Hardy:At some point we will have raised the bar that we've optimized to a point where we don't have a lot of this unnecessary waste. We are going to rely on data, because these models are able to process so much more than my intuition. I think we're also seeing a lot of novel technologies that are looking at future fuels and also the fuels that we have today, and so when we have the conversation around hydrogen and where is it coming from and what's the safest way to transport it, we have engines that are very efficient to run on LNG today, and technology like this actually would then make LNG or natural gas completely zero emissions in the downstream, and so I think it's being open to these. I'm going to call it a long intermediary solution. That could be, say, five to even 50 years, but you have to be willing to take those risks and make those shifts to eventually get to a better overall place of raising that bar.
Eja Tuominen:Digitalizing and getting higher technology on board also means increased risks in security. Can you elaborate a little bit on that topic?
Caitlin Hardy:As we start to sensor up and connect all these different systems, especially for existing vessels that are not new builds, we are potentially adding a lot of threat vectors, and so, when you consider the different ways that you're pulling data from APIs and sending it, you know considering well, what does it mean when your engines and your gen sets and you know your different navigation systems, and these systems have become more and more complex, where you know, I think, most operating lines. A vessel should probably have a software engineer on board is not probably too far of a cry, and so I think that's where it's really critical to ensure that you have strong cybersecurity protocols internally and that you are up to date either with internal or external support Something else that I'd add, because the age of a vessel could be decades old. You may have operating systems on board that are no longer protected, right, they're no longer able to be patched, and so what does that mean for, as you're introducing new technology and connecting a system that was never meant really to be connected to the internet?
Eja Tuominen:I'm also thinking of ship building. It's especially big ships. You can hide a lot of technology that hasn't been ordered in there.
Caitlin Hardy:Exactly, and you know, going for the seafarers, of course.
Caitlin Hardy:But I'm especially interested on the change that the decision makers on the maritime industry need to go through. For decision makers, I think there's this really crucial point of having a strong enough understanding of the tech themselves, but to understand what they're asking of their seafarers. So, as systems are added on board, is this adding to someone's daily routine or is this reducing the time that it takes them to do something? Is this making someone safer or is this potentially making them less safe because this is now an additional routine or another screen they need to look at? That's taking them away from actually having their eyes looking outside for more awareness.
Eja Tuominen:Your mission is to help small companies meeting the big sea monsters the big maritime companies. What's the benefit of collaborating for the big ones with the startups, and vice versa?
Caitlin Hardy:The benefit for companies working with startups that I see is they are able to get access to some of the best talent and some of the hardest workers out there, and so for companies to be able to take that type of energy and passion and people who really want to move the needle that are going to try to see something through to a better end state, I think that's a very noble cause that operating lines are starting to transition from seeing them as a threat but more as a partner of how can we come together and make a better end state.
Caitlin Hardy:Change management is something that's really really hard, and I think finding the seafarers on board, you know, through all ranks is really critical to bring them through the process. I think the difference today and this is largely because of satellite internet is connectivity has shown that we are able to give better insights and improve the quality of life of those on board, and so it's really understanding what is that end state. Don't do autonomy just for autonomy's sake, or don't do new tech just for new tech's sake. What is the problem that you're trying to fix? What is the capability that you're giving them that is beyond what they had before, that improves their life?
Eja Tuominen:You are in the middle of the disruption and the transformation that is happening in naval. What are the big coming trends?
Caitlin Hardy:So the speed at which change is happening is so much faster than really anything we can imagine, I would say, on the commercial side today. But as it relates to defense, the capabilities that we are seeing and how systems are connected, capabilities that we're seeing just from as more and more of these vessels go to sea and being able to understand the missions and what they're capable of, building that data set to be able to better predict behavior it just gets to be tighter and tighter for the mission of what you're trying to accomplish.
Eja Tuominen:You have some experience now from meeting up startups with the big sea monsters, the big companies. What is the lessons learned from that? Where is the improvement potential?
Caitlin Hardy:I think the industry has come a really long way to be willing to talk with startups and willing to look at new technologies, but then I would say it's this and then.
Caitlin Hardy:And so a lot of times with our clients, there'll be times where it's sort of like oh, we had such a great conversation and this was productive and they were engaged, and then what happened? And everyone has a million things going on in their day job, but I think that for operating lines, it's a real opportunity to ensure you're not wasting time. You know it's great to take a conversation with a startup if you're curious, but set the expectations in the beginning of we're happy to meet with you, but we either don't have the funding right now to progress beyond this, but it's great to have the connection for in the future, and so every conversation they take is really an investment in is this where they should be putting their time? And so I would challenge operating companies, if you're talking with startups, to stay engaged and to really set the expectation of what that engagement looks like set the expectation of what that engagement looks like.
Eja Tuominen:Then, katie, may I come to the part of the Autonomy Journals where I will ask you what is your autonomy confession?
Caitlin Hardy:I love this question. I'm short. My husband and I both drive old cars. We don't have backup cameras. Every time I get into a rental car it has a backup camera and I don't use it Because I'm short. I sort of brace myself, push my feet up under the accelerator so I can even see out the back and everyone's like what are you doing? There's a camera right there. But you know it's hard to shift your brain. We're not robots, so it takes time to change your muscle memory and your patterns. So that's my shameful autonomy moment.
Eja Tuominen:Thank you, Caitlin, so much for being our guest today. At Autonomy Journals and recorded at Norrshipping At Norrshipping.
Caitlin Hardy:Thank you so much for having me. It's great to see the work that your team is doing.
Eja Tuominen:You've been just listening to the episode of Autonomy Journals with our guest Caitlin Hardy, the founder of Ness C, supporting startups meeting the big maritime monsters.
Arild Tjomsland:To our listeners. Thanks so much for tuning in. Join us again for the next episode of the Autonomy Journals brought to you by SAMS, the Norwegian Innovation Cluster for Autonomous Mobility and Transport Systems. Autonomy in Norway we do it.
Eja Tuominen:We are looking forward to sharing the next episode with you. If you like the sound of this, please subscribe to the podcast and follow the Autonomy Journals on Spotify and other channels. We'd love to hear from you. Tell us what you'd love to hear more about around autonomy, because in Norway we do it, you, you.