LinerGame expands to France and Singapore

Company emphasizes collaboration through tabletop simuation game.    LinerGame, a company that uses a table-top simulation game to educate players about the container shipping industry, is expanding by setting up agencies in France and Singapore.
   Founded in 2014, the Copenhagen-based company uses container vessels made from LEGO bricks. The simulation game, which about 200 people have played to date, allows for training of people new to the industry, as well as advanced simulation of shipping processes for experienced liner executives. Recently, the game has been adopted by Chalmers University in Gothenburg as part of its shipping and marine technology, and discussions are ongoing with other maritime educational institutions.
   The company said in a statement the expansion comes as a result of a growing need for new types of training in a relatively old-fashioned industry.
   Lars Jensen, director and co-founder of LinerGame, said the game was designed as a table-top exercise because collaboration between individuals and different departments of a liner company is so important. The founders deliberately avoided creating a computer game because that could lure users into thinking that the challenges liner companies face can be solved just by having better computer programs.
   The company said during the game, a team will “take responsibility for core commercial and operational tasks of a container shipping line, including vital terminal tasks, and through teamwork they can maximize carrier profitability. Each player gets to play all the different roles in the game by rotating and get the opportunity to collaborate directly with a number of the other participants.”
   “The expansion will allow LinerGame to more easily establish local training and teambuilding sessions for both small and large shipping companies outside of Denmark, and we are planning to establish additional agencies going forward,” said Jensen. He said the company would expand to other parts of the world if it could find the right persons with solid knowledge of shipping to head agencies and good clusters
   The agencies will be headed by Charles Moret in France and Andy Lane in Singapore. Both are highly experienced liner shipping executives, having been in the industry more than 40 years combined.
   LinerGame was founded by Niels Rytter, Nicolas Guilbert and Lars Jensen.
   Rytter is associate professor at Aalborg University in Copenhagen, Nicolas Guilbert is the founder of Ange Optimization and a specialist in developing optimization tools for container shipping lines, and Jensen is the founder of SeaIntel Maritime Analysis, SeaIntel Consulting, CyberKeel and Vespucci Maritime Publishing.