In conversation with Maritime CEO, Meei Wong, CEO of Circle Digital Ventures, a technology company with a mission to improve human sustainability in the maritime industry, points to a new horizon in maritime tech – a shift from the vessel to the people working on them. For years, maritime technology has focused almost entirely on the ship, the engine, the hull, the route and the fuel, Wong says, and the industry is beginning to see how the biggest operational risks, such as fatigue, stress, untreated health conditions, distraction, and isolation, are human. “We are starting to see more practical solutions emerging that enable earlier intervention rather than reacting when something goes wrong. The mindset is shifting. Supporting crew is no longer just about welfare; it is becoming a core part of risk management and operational resilience. Because in the end, you cannot run a high-performing ship if the people onboard are not well,” she explains. Many years have been spent optimising the vessel’s performance, and the next step, according to Wong, is to bring the same level of discipline and rigour to understanding and managing human risk. AI is a very useful tool in this, and the industry has yet to fully capture the opportunity in applying it to human-related risk. Circle Digital Ventures uses AI on its platform to identify early signals, changes in safety exposure, emerging health concerns, signs of fatigue or stress, so that support and intervention can happen earlier. Wong points out that most serious events continue to involve a human factor, according to incident and claims data. “In practice, AI supports clinical triage in telemedicine, enables more personalised mental wellbeing support and reduces administrative burden across day-to-day operations,” she says Wong also believes that true value is not in any single application, but in the ability to understand patterns across a seafarer’s environment and respond before small issues become operational problems. Circle Digital Ventures and its CEO believe that the focus in the coming year must be to bring all its solutions into a single, connected platform. “Rather than operating as separate services, our focus is to integrate safety, physical and mental health and financial support so they work as one system around the seafarer. At the heart of this industry are the people who keep the world moving. If we can support them to be safer, healthier and more secure, the impact goes far beyond the individual; it strengthens operations, improves stability and helps build a more resilient and sustainable maritime industry over the long term,” she stresses. Technology will only benefit the future of work at sea if it is designed around the realities of seafaring, Wong believes. “The real opportunity now is to use technology to simplify work, reduce cognitive load and give seafarers better visibility and support in their day-to-day lives. That means fewer manual processes, less duplication of reporting and more intelligent systems that help crews make decisions rather than asking them to input more data,” she says. The future of work at sea is also not about more digital tools, Wong claims, but rather about reducing friction, supporting people earlier and creating a working environment where seafarers can focus on their jobs rather than managing the system around them. When asked about seafarer challenges in today’s maritime world, the chief executive claims that they are not facing any new c