When TradeLens launched last year, it received plenty of business and trade-press attention. Now, as a pilot of TradeLens gets underway in Canada, the platform receives the spotlight for the role it is playing in real-world supply chain innovation.

Piloting in the Port of Montréal

In Canada, the French-language broadcaster, Radio-Canada, recently produced a segment for their weekly technology television show, Découverte.

TradeLens got the spotlight in an episode about the various implementations of blockchain (French-language, accessible to Canadian residents). The show focused on cryptocurrencies (the most common implementation of a permissionless blockchain), but the producers cleverly turned to a more concrete (if less-hyped) use of permissioned blockchain technology, right in the Port of Montréal.

There, TradeLens is being piloted with the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA); Livingston International, a customs house broker and freight forwarder; CN Rail and a soon-to-be-named BCO in a six to eight-week pilot set to launch mid-April.

With its vantage point as the international container port closest to North America’s industrial heartland, and with direct rail connections, the Port of Montréal is the ideal proving ground for the end-to-end visibility and document sharing features of TradeLens.

The episode aired on Sunday, March 31 on Radio-Canada, at 6:30 pm. The show was rebroadcast the same day at 8:00 pm on the CBC news channel, then on the specialty channel, Explora. It is online via Découverte’s web page, as well as on Tou.tv (available in Canada).

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Some other recent mentions

Harvard Business Review

HBR’s recent piece on how “Platforms and Blockchain Will Transform Logistics” highlights the changes digitization and platform business models will have on global supply chains. They call the recent advancements in the industry “a transformation that promises to be even more dramatic than the move to third-party logistics a generation ago”.

The Economist

London-based The Economist is a highly-regarded magazine and media company whose grasp of global trends and current affairs makes it a must-read for business leaders and technologists alike. So we were really pleased to see TradeLens mentioned in one of The Economist’s social-media video posts recently.

Entitled, “Can borders become invisible?” the bit briefly surveys some of the technologies that are making it likely that digitization will indeed change how borders work. It notes that customs documents are increasingly being handled digitally; it also cites the decentralized ledger of blockchain as a technology that can offer security for cross-border transactions. TradeLens is highlighted as one of the platforms in use in a number of ports around the world.

Forbes

In another piece of mainstream reporting, TradeLens is referenced (though not actually named, strangely) in a feature on how port and rail logistics businesses are exploring the potential for blockchain to drive efficiency.

As blockchain breaks free of its crypto origins, the commodities trading and shipping world is beginning to recognize and realize the technology’s potential, implementing it to great success and with tremendous future potential.

Read the Forbes article: Blockchain Or Bust: How This Tech Can Boost Port & Rail Logistics Efficiency

The Journal of Commerce

After the recent announcement that the carrier ZIM had joined TradeLens, numerous outlets picked up the news. We can recommend the technology reporting at JOC, which took the opportunity to look deeper into the development of the platform and raise some really interesting points.

Read the article on JOC.com (free registration available): Zim involvement major win for TradeLens