Page 24: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2022)

Interview: Tor Svanes, CEO, NAVTOR

T e Future of Digitalization through the eyes of “Mr. ECDIS” Tor Svanes

As shipowners struggle to determine the best means to leverage digital solutions, Tor Svanes, CEO, NAVTOR, is a treasure trove of intel and perspective, past, present and future. Svanes is an ECDIS pioneer with a long connection to the tech that sits at the center of unlocking the value of digitalization.

“The genius part is not

By Greg Trauthwein only making the complex simple, but making it aritime” is seemingly in-

Broad Experience look easy, too.” terwoven in the DNA of

Svanes’ parents would not allow “

Norwegians, a country young Tor to go to sea until he was age

Mand its population that 18, so he embarked on the path as an has thrived making a living on, under electrician apprentice until starting his and around the seas, while simultane- sailing career with Smedvig at 18. He ously respecting the potential perils and sailed for two years during an interest- the environment itself.

ing time for the maritime industry as

Tor Svanes, CEO of NAVTOR, is more modern ships with increasingly symbolic of the Norwegian grit, a bona sophisticated electronics started to be- ? de ECDIS pioneer emerging from a come the norm rather than exception. small Norwegian town and evolving The shipping company, with Svanes’ into a visionary corporate and technol- electrician background, “took it for ogy leader. granted that I knew everything on the

With its enabling technologies, NAV- new stuff. So I made the decision: I can-

TOR today sits at the crux of the digi- not do this if I don’t ? nd out what’s go- talization and decarbonization trans- ing on inside of those boxes.” formation starting to sweep through

So Svanes started in a technical maritime globally.

school, but ended up in a Norwegian “First of all, everything is based on Technical University, earning a Mas- my love the sea,” said Svanes, during ter’s degree in cybernetics. his recent interview with Maritime Re- “In a way, that was good because I porter TV in Oslo. “I’ve been on the sea was older than the other students and I since I was born more or less, so for me had a lot of practical knowledge. Many it was quite natural to try to go to sea as of the things that we discussed I could soon as I could.” picture, because I knew what it looked like in real life.”

Photo courtesy NAVTOR 24 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • June 2022

MR #6 (18-33).indd 24 6/6/2022 10:09:21 AM