What was PORThack?
PORThack is a hackathon organised by SUBMARINER Network for Blue Growth EEIG and the Elbląg Sea Port Authority, funded by EIT Water with support from the Poul Due Jensen Foundation (Grundfos Foundation | PDJF). Teams worked on real challenges set by the port and Gdynia Maritime University, covering problems ports deal with every day, from contaminated sediment and runoff to crisis coordination and digital risk modelling. You can read more about the challenges in our earlier article on PORThack.
Starting at the port, not at a desk
The day began at the port itself. Before anyone opened a laptop, the teams took a bus to the new terminal site to see how large it is, how it will be built in phases and where the problems actually sit. The teams went into the sprint with a real place in mind rather than just a briefing document, and it showed in the pitches.
How the teams were judged
After a day of focused work, each team gave a five-minute pitch and answered questions from the jury. Every pitch was scored on relevance, innovation, impact, viability and execution.
The winning ideas
- Port of Vordingborg (Denmark): circular port expansion. How can Polish ports turn contaminated dredged sediment from a costly problem into new port land?
- BioBright (UK): a digital twin for port water and risk. A virtual copy of the port that shows where pollution comes from, where it flows and what happens in a crisis.
- Association of Polish Communes Euroregion Baltic: runoff capture and treatment. Catching and cleaning rainwater on quays and yards before it washes into the harbour.
What is the case for Baltic ports?
Ports sit where land, sea and city meet, so water quality, sediment and risk management are shared problems rather than technical details for one operator. Putting ports, municipalities, businesses and developers in the same room, on a real site, is how early-stage ideas get tested against real conditions. It is the kind of cooperation SUBMARINER supports across the Baltic Sea Region.
Thank you
A big thank you to our jury for the tough questions and the careful scoring: Vytautas Paulauskas, Head of Jury (Klaipėda University), Arūnas Balčiūnas (Coastal Research and Planning Institute), Sami Vesterinen (Traficom), Karolina Krośnicka (Gdańsk University of Technology), Jesper Raakjær (Aalborg University) and Felix Schröder (BRYCK).
Thank you also to the mentors who guided the teams through the sprint, and to the Elbląg Sea Port Authority for opening its doors and setting such concrete challenges.
Finally, a thank you to K2 Solutions, our partners on the ground, who kept the day running smoothly from the first bus to the final pitch.
