September-October Editor’s Note: Marinas of the Future

This issue touches on many important topics related to how marinas might change in the future – training and working with Millennials, as well as what Millennials might want in a future marina; attracting Hispanic boaters, the largest growing demographic; mixed-use developments, introducing new people to boating and the waterfront; advances in pumpout equipment and security technology; and using software to train the next generation of workers for the marine industry.

With smartphones and Wi-Fi as the norm, we investigated what a “smart” marina looks like now, and what it might look like in the future. Whatever technology revolution is coming for the marine industry, it will be riding on the cloud. To read more about how companies in our industry are already creating smart marinas, don’t miss the story on page 13.

What was most exciting about writing that story was the number of things I couldn’t put into this article, new products on the horizon that weren’t quite ready but just around the corner.

I spoke with Iaian Archibald, co-founder and CEO of Swell Advantage in Halifax, Canada, a technology company that builds tools for the marine industry.

Archibald sees automation and artificial intelligence gaining more ground in the marina industry, as the industry as a whole goes through a technological revolution of sorts. Because the marine industry has been slow to adopt new technologies in some cases, many industries are far advanced of ours, leaving new products and R&D in its wake, ready for the marine industry to adopt. Because there has been a lag in new technology in the marine industry, and technology has advanced at such an exponential rate, it primes this industry for a jump.

As example, Archibald points to Africa, a continent far underdeveloped, compared to First World countries, societies and communities. In a place that lacked the infrastructure for landlines and internet access, as we have known it for the last two decades, mobile technology and affordable smartphones changed all that. Much of the continent skipped landline adoption altogether. “Now the whole economy (of Africa) is run through mobile devices,” Archibald said. “In the marine industry, particularly for urban marinas, where technology adoption might be quicker, we’re going to see a quantum leap.”

When and how you leap is up to you.