CAPTN initiative introduces itself to minister Madsen

Schleswig-Holstein has had a new Economics Minister since mid-2022. Claus Ruhe Madsen (independent) seems to have set himself the task of getting to know important players from his department – business, transport, work, technology and tourism – personally. He also found time for the CAPTN initiative at the beginning of this year and found out about our current projects and goals on January 5th.

After being welcomed by Dr. Wiebke Müller-Lupp, Scientific Director of the Kiel Science Center, learned from Minister Madsen that the idea of ​​an autonomous ferry has been around since 2018. At that time, reported Müller-Lupp, she and Dr. Karsten Pankratz, CAU Innovation Scout, first talks with Kiel’s Mayor Ulf Kaempfer and the then President of Kiel University, Ulf Kipp. The idea: to better connect our science and university locations with the help of an autonomous ferry. After further talks were held with potential partners, more and more concrete suggestions for the design of such a ferry came up – for example that it should use clean fuel. President Kipp finally provided start-up financing and the CAPTin_Kiel project (as it was called back then) could start. Today, emphasized Müller-Lupp, the initiative as an overall consortium is a pioneer in many areas in Schleswig-Holstein, such as autonomous shipping, energy, mobility and design, and demonstrates competence in the construction of the test vehicle. In doing so, she prepared the ground for the following speakers.