Most of the students were unfamiliar with Singapore’s maritime industry before the workshop. Joanne Lin, a Service Designer at Wärtsilä Singapore said one of the goals of the event was to inform the students about the industry and what design can contribute to it.
"For us, in Wärtsilä, design has been a crucial element in the projects run out of our Singapore Acceleration Centre and we are eager to further explore and strengthen the role of human-centred design in our work,” said Lin.
Talks given by Ang Shi En from the Singapore Maritime Foundation (SMF), Mikael Leppä, Design Director, and Chris Chung, Director of Ecosystem Development, Voyage Solutions, helped give the students more information about the importance of design work in the maritime ecosystem.
Lin also spoke about her work as a Service Designer on the Intellitug project.
"We are partnering with PSA Marine, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and other ecosystem partners to enhance the capabilities of the harbour tug by combining some of the most advanced Smart Marine technologies and putting them to the service of PSA Marine's Tug Masters,” said Lin.
“My role as a designer is to firstly understand and then share with the rest of the team the Tug Master's job to be done, help them understand how the technology would impact current ways of working and be involved in co-creating the user experience and interface with the users and developers. I focus on the human factors side of things, and work with my team to deliver a user-friendly system that the Tug Masters would be excited to use and adopt easily.”