Ascanio Maritime: How mixed reality can change the shipping sector

A few months ago, mixed-reality startup Ascanio and shipping conglomerate Fameline Holding Group announced their joint venture, Ascanio Maritime. Here, George Tziazas and Minas Kyriakou, the founder and CTO of the startup respectively, and Fameline Technologies Group Managing Director Stephanos Stephou, discuss the challenges of finding a place for novel technologies in the shipping industry and the ways in which mixed reality can bring value to ship managers and shipowners.

Ahologram of a scaled-down red Mustang spun on its axis above the slick surface of the ten-seater conference room table. Behind the car, Minas Kyriakou, the CTO of Ascanio, the mixed-reality startup that developed the technology, scrolled through his phone as, behind him, the morning light fell on various items in the lobby of the Fameline Holding Group, among them a copper telescope on a tripod. “There should be a menu on your left,” said George Tziazas, the startup’s founder. Well, what do you know! As though holding a set of tweezers, I opened a directory on the menu. On my right, the Mustang’s engine came into being. Strange as it sounds, using mixed reality quickly felt like second nature.

The first mention of mixed reality appeared in a 1994 paper called A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays, in which Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino examined the concept as a next-generation telecommunications solution, where both the virtual and the real occupied the same space. The advantages were evident: unlike the experience of fully immersive virtual reality, users are not tethered to a pole and remain aware of their surroundings. Mixed reality frees the user’s hands by superimposing digital objects on the real with a headset rather than a mobile device, which is the go-to hardware for augmented reality. To clarify: the headset is not the technology in question, but merely the hardware; the red Mustang, for example, was added in the conference room with Microsoft’s HoloLens.

The other person in the conference room had been instrumental in understanding how mixed reality could drive value for Fameline’s vast client network. Stephanos Stephou leaned back in his ergonomic chair and said in a measured tone, “From the outside, the maritime sector might look like a conservative industry but, in reality, it has its own pace which has accelerated in recent years.” While shipping’s unavoidable collision with the green agenda has added a new spring to its step when approaching new technologies, it still lags behind other transportation sectors. According to the International Energy Agency, R&D shipping spending between 2007-19 stood at US$1.6 billion whereas the automotive sector spent US$67 billion. However, the Fameline Holding Group did not adopt the overall industry’s cautiousness. Founded in 1989, it initially supplied parts, equipment and maintenance services and has since expanded – via acquisitions, partnerships and joint ventures – to having an extensive portfolio of some ninety companies serving an international clientele of ship managers and shipowners. Stephou said, “Our pursuit of new technologies and smarter ideas has always been in our DNA because we’re always trying to improve the value proposition for our customer base and any type of technology we incorporate in the existing portfolio is critically important if we are to compete on a global scale.”

Stephou was not always a corporate man. During the 2011 parliamentary elections, he was running campaigns for the Democratic Rally’s candidates and later acted as adviser to the then Minister of Justice and Public Order. He remains coy about his 180-degree turn into the corporate world and it seemed imprudent to press for more information but one could imagine that a desire for financial stability may have played a part. He joined Fameline in 2014 – entering the shipping industry was an easy choice, considering Cyprus’ position as the third largest ship management centre in Europe – and rose through the ranks to become Managing Director of the Fameline Technologies Group. Despite knowing how the game is played on the international stage and having the ability to communicate difficult concepts in a digestible format, it took some eighteen months for Stephou to discover what the shipping industry’s pain points were and how Ascanio could alleviate them.

George Tziazas created Ascanio in 2015 as a game development studio, with the online multiplayer RPG game Crash Force becoming its first title. The arrival of Kyriakou a couple of years later, though, signalled an evolution for the startup. “Being a game development studio first and turning into a software house later allowed us to merge and gain experience in both fields and then apply them to mixed reality,” Tziazas explained. Naturally, by operating within a framework that was largely unknown to the majority of people, they encountered resistance. Rather than feeling deterred, however, they doubled down and engaged with the industry, first as educators. By Kyriakou’s own account, they observed that as soon as people had familiarised themselves with mixed reality, they realised that it was a problem-solving tool like no other. In 2021, following the market’s reopening, Ascanio’s production jumped tenfold. Recent contracts include building the first European interactive educational centre for the Ephorate Greek School in Nicosia and collaborating with the University of Nicosia’s Department of Physiotherapy on a Parkinson’s physiotherapy study, where mixed-reality experiences will be part of the treatment plan. “We’re finally in a place where people actually understand what we are doing,” Tziazas said enthusiastically.

A few years ago, the very idea of mixed reality onboard a ship would have been impossible. There was simply not enough bandwidth and internet speed, as well as low enough latency, to allow uninterrupted, real-time communication between an onshore server and headsets onboard a ship in the middle of the ocean. The Group invested in this vertical through its subsidiary One Net Limited, which offers satellite connectivity services. “We have managed to bring down that barrier to some extent,” Stephou noted, “and in a manageable way in terms of financial commitments, which has allowed new technologies to be introduced. Now, of course, there are a lot of nice-to-have things but you need to be able to demonstrate value for the person who’s paying the bill.” Add to the list of issues the fact that this was Tziazas and Kyriakou’s first interaction with the industry and their first experience of dealing with a corporate of this size.

“It took us some time to figure it out, but we never lost our faith,” Stephou said. “This is an essential takeaway for anyone who wants to collaborate with a corporation.”

“Patience was key on both sides because we also gave the Group time to realise what we had created,” Kyriakou added.

“And I’m still not entirely convinced that we know every corner of the organisation!” Tziazas chimed in.

Following several meetings between Fameline, its clients and the startup, it would appear that, for the time being, the maritime sector wants to use mixed reality as ‘digital eyes’ on ships to detect and correct operational deficiencies in various pieces of equipment. “Think about it as a remote maintenance setup: somebody onboard will be wearing the glasses, or any other device in the future, and will be able to connect with the engineering team onshore, which will guide them to fix anything,” Stephou explained. This will reduce the downtime involved with fixing broken parts and train seafarers to troubleshoot issues without manufacturers having to put a very expensive engineer onboard. “And this is a digital platform, right? It’s not the HoloLens. So, on this platform, a ship manager or shipowner can add any other data they like. One should not approach what we’re doing with Ascanio as a standalone project, because we are integrating not only Fameline with Ascanio but the companies of Fameline with Ascanio.”

Ascanio and Fameline came together via a joint venture, aptly called Ascanio Maritime (it will not include any contracts with other industries that the startup has secured). This is not new for the shipping conglomerate. In 2017, for example, it entered into another similar marriage with Exelia Technologies, which provides tailor-made software solutions for the maritime sector and facilitates the digitalization of the Group and its companies. Indeed, this is a good example of how the Group approaches innovation since, rather than hiring an army of developers to build these technologies in-house, it relies on the expertise and knowledge of people who have already reached that point. “Because we really want to focus on where we can bring value. We are not your typical investor in startups,” Stephou said. “Of course, we’re interested in big profits but we’re not saying. ‘This sounds like a good idea, so let’s invest and wait for our exit.’ We’re more interested in companies where we have a strategic role to play.”

Looking at the nascent startup ecosystem of Cyprus, one would be hard-pressed to find a handful of deals with local corporates, especially in the shipping industry. So, there was a lot more riding on this deal than just introducing novel technology to a ship; it was a statement that big companies like Fameline could fuel the expansion of the ecosystem.

“Fameline’s way of thinking is something that is really missing from Cyprus. It allowed us to add another industry to our vision,” Kyriakou said.

“And, the most important thing,” Tziazas added, “is finding people that can connect with your vision. You can get the best deal out there but if the investor cannot connect with how you want things to be, you won’t go very far.”

(This interview first appeared in the February 2023 issue of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it.)