Within their Tyne2050 strategy, the Port of Tyne - a trust port located in the North East of England and home of the UK’s first innovation hub dedicated to the application of new technologies in the Maritime industry - committed to evaluating Blockchain technology and its potential for application within a port context.

In the first of two workshops, I introduced a cross-departmental project team to the underlying concept and value proposition of blockchain. Armed with that information, we explored at a high level how that technology might be applied in a port context across twelve business areas. Within each area, I invited the team to consider the potential value of the technology within the three distinct business pillars (People, Planet and Profit) and to assess where the value of trust lay both for the port and the upstream/downstream stakeholders.

Building on the outputs of the first workshop, in session two I introduced the team to six additional criteria and invited them to assess the viability of their ideas against these measures, narrowing down the outputs to two or three ideas for further analysis. These ideas were then assessed on three criteria to determine a feasible candidate for a possible proof-of-concept.

Through this exercise, the group achieved its goal of identifying one specific area of business where the application of blockchain could address a number of issues in the business.

The outputs of the workshop will be used to inform the next phase of strategy execution.