Euronaval-online: the Director’s word
By Paolo Valpolini
During the virtual Press Conference organised the week prior the exhibition opening Hugues du Plessis d’Argentré, the Director of Euronaval-Online, highlighted which will be the main opportunities that the digital event will provide to exhibitors and visitors.
“In our exhibition it will be possible to visit booths, similar to those we are used to but digital, on which visitors will be able to see equipment, videos, get brochures, and it will be possible to contact industrialists via chats or phone calls,” he points out.
But the virtual visit will not be the only item. Other opportunities will be available. “Politicians and military personalities will be present at the exhibition opening ceremony on Monday 19th at 10 o’clock through recorded videos,” d’Argentré tells the audience. Among those the Minister for the Armed Forces, the Minister of the Sea, the Minister Delegate for Industry, the Sea Secretary General, the Chairman of the National Assembly Defence Commission, the President of the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defence Commission, the General Delegate for Armaments, the French Navy Chief of Staff and the President of the GICAN and of Euronaval.
In 2018 Euronaval featured new areas, such as SEAnnovation, in cooperation with aimed at start-ups, and the “Navire des Metiers”, the latter aimed at education and training and at naval-related jobs run by the CINav (Campus des Industries Navales, Naval Industries Campus), and these will be replicated online in 2020.
A new area will be the Cyber Naval Hub, organised in partnership with the CEIS (Compagnie Européenne d’Intelligence Stratégique) and with the FIC (Forum International de la Cybersécurité), dedicated to naval cybersecurity issue.
Webinars, workshops and round-tables will also be run along the week on the live section of the exhibition. The Jane’s and the GICAN have carried out a study on the “World Defense Shipbuilding” and a specific webinar dedicated to this issue will take place on Monday afternoon, the GICAN itself organising two roundtables on strategic industrial issues, four more being set up by the CYBER Naval Hub and four by SEAnnovation, one per day. As for the exhibitors, around 20 on-line presentations have been scheduled. A said, to reach the events programme visitors must click on the “Live” button in the virtual exhibition homepage.
“The key issue is that this virtual exhibition allows to keep on business-to-business meetings in secure video link, among industrialists as well as between industrialists and visitors, and we wish b-to-g (business-to-government) meetings with representatives of foreign official delegations that planned to visit the exhibition and that are now still willing to meet industry representatives, albeit through video link,” Mr. d’Argentré stated, underlining that 77 delegations of around 40 nations booked in before the decision to go virtual, hoping that many of these will reach out digitally the event.
