Navigating the seas of Society 5.0 

Evidence suggests that the world’s first true maritime adventure took place some 50,000 years ago in the crossing between the Pleistocene continents of Sunda (mainland Asia) and Sahul (New Guinea and Australia). 

Much has happened in sea travel since then, both from a vessel and navigation technology perspective. Global positioning systems have been in place for civil use with good accuracy for less than 25 years, and have truly revolutionized boating in Nordic waters. For example, the Stockholm archipelago alone measures more than 24.000 islands and islets, as well as just as many underwater rocks. Traversing them safely with a paper chart alone is not for the fainthearted. 

At Skippo we utilize mobile devices to combine sea charts and GPS positioning to bring safe and affordable navigation assistance to a million users in the Nordics. However, over and above navigation, in the true spirit of Society 5.0, the company is on a journey to incorporate many more business aspects of boatlife into its (software) architecture and apps  – from destination inspiration, insurance and environmental awareness to assistance at sea and proactive boat maintenance. Powered by data and machine learning, the company uses agile methodologies combined with real user feedback to incorporate innovative features into a digital ecosystem that will allow a large scale of users to better enjoy the relatively short boat season.