Maritime Academy team wins the student work competition, organized by the Freeport of Riga

“815 years is a considerable period of time to look back and assess the achievements. The Freeport of Riga is a stable leader among the Baltic countries, which confirms that the provided input has had a positive result. The Freeport of Riga shall continue its success story – that is why innovative ideas and prospects for the development are so important, and the annual student competition is an excellent platform for creating such ideas and presenting them to the port experts. So I hope that participants of the next competition - this time it will be the secondary school student contest to be held this autumn - will surprise us with even more interesting and, most importantly, useful and realistic ideas, ” says Mrs. Anita Leiskalne, Director of the Freeport of Riga Public Relations Department, and the competition “The Port for the City” jury President.

The winners of the student competition “The Port for the City” are Karlīna Oša and Zane Narnicka. The team came up with creative proposals related to the enlargement of Riga Passenger Port, emphasizing the importance of port infrastructure development as a potential future source of jobs for Latvian Maritime Academy students. The second prize went to sisters Annija and Agate Strode (Riga Technical University). The team presented the ideas of environmental protection measures and technology to be used in the port with the aim to foster efficiency of the possible solutions. The third prize went to RISEBA team - Evgeny Davidkins and Una Melne, who offered creative ideas to enhance the Freeport’s local and international communication in the social network Facebook.

“The victory was a shock to us and a very pleasant surprise. It is important that the Freeport of Riga maintains just as high level as other European ports and we very much hope to find our future work place just at the port of Riga,”said the winners Karlīna Oša and Zane Narnicka.

The competition was held in two rounds. In the first round the students submitted papers on various topics related to the port, while the finals involved the team competition: the authors of the best papers had to present and defend their ideas in front of a competent jury. They jury was composed of the President - Mrs.Anita Leiskalne, the Freeport of Riga Public Relations Department, Mr. Maris Purgailis, Latvian University of Economics and Management Faculty Professor, Mrs. Inga Lapina, Riga Technical University Quality Technology Department Chair, Mr.Arnis Bankovičvs, Latvian Maritime Academy Maritime Transport Section Director, and the winner of the first student competition “The Port for the City” Ms. Anete Zvaigzne.