The recent climate and environmental disasters that brought devastation through mud slides in Laos and Brazil, tsunamis in South East Asia, monsoons on the Indian sub-continent, flooding in East Africa and hurricanes in the Bahamas and Caribbean have served to bring into sharp focus the need to deploy emergency aid much more quickly in order to save lives.

BISEN Technology Investment Ltd is working in partnership with local government agencies in Cornwall such as the Cornwall Development Council and local industries such as Lizard Trailers to develop new rapid deployment solutions.  News film has shown dockside facilities being denied by wrecked boats against the unloading jetties and hence there is a requirement for an alternative means to get aid from the relief vessels to the place of need.  This can mean delivering across the beach or up the swollen rivers to survivors as the water line advances or recedes, often through shallow waters, over mud and along roads and inland waterways that are cluttered with debris.

We received confirmation of a grant award in September 2019 from the Marine Challenge Fund, part of the ERDF’s European Structural and Investment Funds’ Growth Programme 2014-2020 which partly funded a laptop and design software for the project coordination team working at Tremough Innovation Centre for the development of a Hovercraft DROPS Pallet concept for Griffon’s new hovercraft.  Since then, we’ve spent a week at an exhibition in London to capture user requirements to feed into the design concept. If successful, the project will lead to further work and employment to boost the marine technology sector in Cornwall and Europe’s contribution to effective humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Further information about the Marine-I and the Marine Challenge Fund can be found here: https://www.marine-i.co.uk/services