By: Christian Lorenz

Jan Cantow, co-founder and CEO of heyport, wants his start-up to revolutionise elements within maritime communication. The innovative platform simplifies communication and coordination around ship calls as a scalable solution for ports around the world. It creates intelligent networks involving all stakeholders and facilitates the process of sharing important information. We asked him about the benefits of heyport and what sets the business apart.

HHM: You worked for a long time in port settings before founding heyport. Is that why you are focusing on terminal operators?

Jan Cantow: Yes and no. You could say we are shifting our gaze from the quayside towards the horizon, where the next ship will soon appear. Our platform provides a central repository with all the necessary data to plan upcoming throughput operations as early and reliably as possible. Aside from that, we are mainly targeting shipowners and agencies to offer them what essentially amounts to a digital handshake with the terminal. With heyport, they can optimise the time slots for their ships to call at the Unikai RoRo terminal in Hamburg, for example. Then we have government authorities, stevedores and other service providers.

„heyport comes with a wide range of integrations, such as AIS satellite vessel positions and makes the planning of maintenance and other services much easier and reliably up-to-date.

This significantly reduces the scope of manual tasks for our operational decision-makers"

Tobias Wiese
Operations manager of HANSAPORT

HHM: What benefits does your platform deliver to customers?

Jan Cantow: With heyport, customers have continuously updated access to a broad range of information that is vital for a smooth and efficient port call. It is not only about end-to-end, satellite-assisted vessel tracking, including round trips and schedules. We have brought government authorities on board as well, so official HPA confirmation for a call in Hamburg and elsewhere is shown immediately in the system.

Another noteworthy factor is that the application significantly improves internal coordination for many customers. Terminals can use this capability to map technical resources such as harbour cranes or terminal tractors and efficiently plan their deployment or maintenance in heyport.

HHM: Do customers need to integrate the software into the IT system?

Jan Cantow: We have created a browserbased system that can be accessed on any computer or smar tphone. The standard software from heyport is open to all countries, can be easily accessed via an API interface and used to share data. It works smoothly even with specialised coordination systems like HVCC or the terminal operating systems run by large container terminals like CTA. Information flows in both directions: not only can users access important data, they are also able to share status information to increase currency and added value throughout the planning process. So sharing benefits everyone.

„With heyport customers

have continously

updated access to a broad

range of information."

Jan Cantow
Co-founder and CEO of heyport

The company

heyport is part of HHLA Next, the investment and venture- building unit of Hamburger Hafen und Logistik AG, with a focus on digitalisation and sustainability in maritime logistics.