Marorka: A Startup Profile

Marorka (Photo credit: Finnur)

It is not fair to do a Startup Profile on Marorka as it is technically not a startup because the company has sailed the rough waters of the Valley of Death and it is well on the way of becoming one of the stars of the Icelandic startup story. The company was formed in 2002 so it has been a 10 year journey... However, there is a story behind the story, it took the company a while to break into the Shipping industry I am told. It is only in the last 3 years  that the company has really taken off and I believe the reason is because of their focus on the software side of the data that they gather from the ships and opening access to that data through the internet. In their own words "Marorka offers onboard and onshore Fuel Management and Energy Management solutions equipped with real time monitoring and decision support, an essential part of operational optimization. With Marorka’s energy management solutions for voyage tracking, inventory recording, reporting and data analysis, your business will be well on its way to maximized efficiency." 
I was rather surprised to hear that Ship builders do not provide the necessary information to optimize energy usage in the vehicles, it actually makes sense, no car manufacturer tells you how best to drive your car i.e when to step on the gas and when to step on the brakes. It is quite interesting that the founders of this company saw the opportunity and built a business. What was very interesting for me to understand was the sheer volume of time series data that they capture transport to a central server process it and make it available on a portal for the Fleet or Ship manager on shore to see. There are a number of challenges one has to factor, connectivity to the Internet is not continuous and the amount of data that can be transmitted is limited so I see algorithms that were used in the early days of the internet data transfer protocol should serve them well. I don't know their software architecture but it should be an interesting problem to solve or improve on.

Related articles

• Futureship and Marorka: A Partnership to Increase Shipping Efficiency (gcaptain.com)
• Cleantech Startup Incubator Begins Fostering New Crop of Companies (treehugger.com)

Software will disrupt the Electricity Industry

Another example of how Software based companies are starting to squeeze more value out of traditional industries was highlighted by this Bloomberg article titled "Energy-Saving Software Turns Factories into Power Plants" to me. I have written about how Software is going to be the basis for every industry here and how Iceland can take a lead on this here and my vision for Iceland here. All the engineering principles today will be implemented by Software. No wonder the Mayor of New York City wants to learn to code. If you have not signed up to learn how the software systems work, I highly recommend that you do. There are many startups that make it very easy to learn to code like www.codeacademy.com. 

Coming back to the article the summary of it is "Viridity Energy make software used by dozens of large facilities in the U.S., including commercial buildings and factories, to manage their energy and Viridity is the first in the U.S. that also lets power guzzlers sell their energy back to the grid". There is a company in Iceland called ReMake Electric, which is focused on the same problem and has a hardware component that goes with the software and enable households or commercial buildings to optimize their energy use. I know the founder and have met with the team. I advised them to focus more on the software side rather than the hardware side of the business which they have done. They are starting to make in-roads into big commercial enterprises.

If Iceland wants to be a leader in Renewable Energy it is obviously driven by the abundant geothermal energy that is available here but more importantly renewable energy should be govern by smart software that efficiently supplies, utilizes and reuses the energy that we tap from natural sources. Leadership in energy is not driven by abundance, it is driven by smart and sustainable use of Energy.

Related articles

• Schneider Electric Buys Viridity's DCIM Software (datacenterknowledge.com)
• More Chinese interest in Icelandic tourism sector (icenews.is)
• Five Quick Home Energy Saving Tips (txu.com)
• Putting consumers in control of Europe's smart grid (smartgridwatch.wordpress.com)
• How to Cut Energy Costs (openforum.com)

New report on Potential for Renewable Energy use in the US

You can read the report online for free, the summary of the findings:

1. Renewable could account for 10% of US energy needs by 2020
2. To increase the usage of renewable energy greater than 10%, significant investment, technological progress, policy changes and incentives need to exist
3. technological developments and consistent policy will need to be coordinated with manufacturing capacity and access to capital in order to accelerate deployment of renewable electricity

Branson pledges $3 Billion to fight global warming

Branson pledges to fight global warming - Yahoo! News... Major statement from Richard Branson! All the proceeds from his transportation company will be invested in efforts to find Renewable, Sustainable Energy sources in an effort to wean the world off oil and coal. More and more organizations like Glitnir are trying to participate in the fight to change the course that we are on! It is very refreshing to hear that my banks strategy defined in May, 2005 is totally in line with the Global Agenda!