Joost van Ree

Group Director, Cruise & Yachts at Ocean Technology Group

Speaker

After spending some time at sea and several commercial positions at various maritime companies ashore I had the idea of a maritime simulator centre aimed at commercial companies rather than maritime students.

The concept was to build a simulator centre where companies could buy simulator capacity and train with their own trainers on their own mathematical models. ‘Simulator-as-a-service’ so to say.

That resulted in Simwave, the biggest independent simulator centre in the world, located in Rotterdam. The centre was perfectly suited for the cruise industry so I spent a lot of time with cruise lines and gained a deep knowledge of the industry. I had to leave Simwave because of personal reasons and at that point I joined CLIA – Cruise Lines International Association, as Director, Partner Relations. At CLIA I continued and extended my relationship with the cruise lines and the wider industry.