FleetMon meets German Federal Bank
in Press by Stephanie Duscha“You can see all the ships in the world here?”, “All in real-time?”, “We never expected that!”
Yes, we at FleetMon can see all the ships in the world in real-time. And what else we can do and how we are revolutionizing the maritime logistics industry at our headquarters in Rostock were presented to representatives of the German Federal Bank.
Once a year, part of the German Federal Bank’s head office visits a local office. This year it is MV’s turn. Together with the German Federal Bank Rostock branch manager, Peter Kolzarek, 13 employees visited us on the afternoon of June 8 to look at our offices and learn more about FleetMon. As expected, we scored first with our unbeatable view over the Rostock city harbor. After a short coffee and water break, Peter Kolzarek took the word and thanked us for the invitation: “Even though we live in the north and are at home here in Rostock, nobody expected what is done here in these offices. We are delighted to be here.”
The Story of FleetMon
With that, he turned the word over to Carsten Hilgenfeld, Head of Research and Development, who opened his presentation with a little anecdote about the founding and creation of FleetMon in 2007:
“Long before FleetMon was born, since 1996 to be exact, the JAKOTA Design Group – an agency for web design and web applications – existed. A representative of this company, a ship spotter with ship photos in his pocket, and an IT expert who owned an AIS receiver met and realized that their respective expertise would make an innovative product – the idea for FleetMon was born in 2007. And the first major customer was the Port of Rostock.”
Unique, Independent, Successful
One asked: “What makes FleetMon so unique?” Well, we are the market leaders in what we do, and we also built the first vessel data collection in the world. In addition, we are a private company and completely independent. Project-oriented work is a priority for us. We have customers from over 100 different countries who come to us with their requirements, and we provide them with customized solutions. This ranges from historical ship position data to a broad portfolio of powerful APIs. World-renowned companies such as Daimler, Tesla, and Siemens use our services.
Especially the catchword “historical data” caught the attention of the audience. “You can provide ship data from the past?” one German Federal Bank employee asked incredulously. “We can indeed do that,” Carsten Hilgenfeld replied, “The signal that the ship is sending out at that moment is the most valuable. Then it immediately loses value – until about a week has passed. Then it becomes valuable again. At FleetMon, we can provide data back to 2009.”
Are you interested in analyzing vessel movements? Browse our historical data packages!
Loyal and Engaged Community
After taking a closer look at our FleetMon Explorer, one audience member noted that we can track not only container vessels but all ships on the seven seas. How this could be possible, she asked with interest in the direction of Hilgenfeld. Hilgenfeld took the opportunity to talk about AIS receivers: “Almost every ship owner is obliged to have an AIS receiver on board. These serve to prevent collisions at sea.” Exempt from this regulation are, for example, recreational and leisure vessels. However, many still use them these days. This again called the viewer to attention. She asked to locate her friend’s sailboat. No sooner said than done. They all saw the boat in question in Kiel harbor and its route. What was still missing? A photo! Around 250 ship spotters worldwide have provided more than 800,000 ship photos. None of them had the sailboat in question in front of their lens yet. However, the ship owners have already promised us one.
After the presentation, there was still plenty of time for exchange. Five employees of FleetMon were on hand next to Carsten Hilgenfeld to answer numerous questions about FleetMon and our work. At the same time, we could also learn a lot about the German Federal Bank and its location in Rostock.
We thank Peter Kolzarek and his team for the visit, exciting conversations, and successful afternoon!
