In the latest instalment from Ship Concept 2035, our brand new magazine, Splash reporters detail a recent, pertinent workshop at Geneva Dry. Starting off the 2025 edition of the world’s leading commodities shipping event, Geneva Dry, was a specialist workshop sponsored by Inmarsat exploring how connectivity at sea drives digitalisation, decarbonisation and particularly crew welfare. Hosting the panel, prior to the main conference at the Hotel President Wilson in the Swiss city of Geneva, Richard Watts, managing director of HR Maritime, tasked a stellar lineup of speakers with giving a rundown on the subject of how crewing and operations have changed in the digital age and how different areas of shipping and shipmanagement are being impacted. The first panellist to address the room was Audra Drablos, strategy director at maritime connectivity specialist Inmarsat, describing vessels in the past as remote islands compared to connection hubs or remote offices that they are today. Drablos argued that things have really changed for crews in terms of connecting back home and having less feeling of isolation, as well as operationally, because they don’t have to make decisions on their own, but also noted that although massive changes are taking place, this is far from universal. Are we turning a ship into a micromanaged hell? “I was shocked to hear that 13% of vessels still don’t provide connectivity to their crew,” she said, “but things are changing rapidly; there’s been a lot of disruption in terms of connectivity and how it’s delivered.” From the perspective of Silje Moan, chief commercial officer of Norwegian maritime software developer Dualog, changes in connectivity onboard ships over the last 10 years have been moving towards a high- or office-like bandwidth, low-latency situation. “We can move from focusing on saving costs on bits and bytes and compressing absolutely everything to focusing more on what kind of value we can bring to the end user on board and also in the office. Now we don’t have to take into account how much data this will require,” she said. Moving a little bit sideways, the discussion turned to ESG and how connectivity is helping the increasing requirement for collecting data and reporting. Peter Schellenberger, founder of maritime consultancy Novamaxis, highlighted that, while there are positive and negative impacts of connectivity increase, it is “the first real disruptor” that we see on a technology basis in the maritime sector that could hopefully be followed by many others if put in the right frame. “Now we can start thinking about what we are going to do with it meaningfully,” he said. Schellenberger noted that “surprisingly or not”, connectivity is still the number one driver for the crew. “If, as a company, you want to be relevant and retain and win new people, then these are the tools that you have to provide almost no matter what the cost is,” he said, adding that a move to declare connectivity a basic human right for a seafarer is something worth pursuing. Speaking of challenges that come along with better connectivity, Schellenberger called attention to loneliness on board when people disappear in their bunks, a lack of team building and onshore offices pushing more work for their colleagues at sea. “It’s not an enablement of the vessel; it’s an overload of bureaucracy,” he stressed. The microphone was then handed to Shubpreet Singh, senior managing director of strategy delivery at shipmanager V.Ships, who