Young say YES to shipping
The established YES to Shipping Forum brought to a close earlier this month the conference program of the most successful Posidonia exhibition so far, with the conference dominated by the interest by young people.
School and university students aged 14 to 29 years old attended the forum, which was carried out with great success and honored by the presence of the President of the Union of Greek Shipowners (UGS) Melina Travlos, her predecessor Theodoros Veniamis and the Founder & President of the exhibition, Themis Vokos.
YES to Shipping has been held since 2016 on the last day of every Posidonia to encourage open dialogue among academic and non-academic institutions, executives and young people, and has now become a firm calendar event.
Due to the pandemic-induced cancellation of the 2020 expo, Posidonia 2022 was the first of its kind for many students. Taking that into consideration, YES to Shipping Forum 2022 was designed to benefit the participants to the fullest, providing them with the opportunity to meet various shipping companies and discuss with maritime executives.
In the first part, the young attendees visited more than 30 booths of the exhibition, under the guidance of one of the 50 volunteers of YES (Young Executives of Shipping) Forum for each group. This way, in addition to learning about the subject and activity of each company, they also were able to hand their CV directly to executives of these companies, thereby increasing their chances of working in the shipping sector.
In the second part, all participants gathered at the Posidonia Conference Hall and had the opportunity to hear the thoughts and advice of successful people from the industry.
Travlos noted that “shipping is its people, people who were inspired, and inspiring, so that our shipping is led, but also maintained over the years at the top of the world. This is also my personal bet as president of the UGS, to inspire young people to participate actively and effectively in our shipping, in our future,” she added.
Veniamis stressed that “young people should have dreams. But if you dream of working and offering in shipping, in any country, yes, you must be in love with shipping.”
