10-Year Anniversary of the ICCL

17 October 2019, by Julia Bachale

Photo: JP

From Sept 30 until Oct 2, 2019, the 10th International Conference on Computational Logistics took place in Barranquilla, Colombia. This conference jubilee was hosted by Prof. Dr. Carlos Paternina-Arboleda of the Universidad Del Norte and presided over by the ICCL’s co-founder, Prof. Dr. Stefan Voß.

This year, three members of the IWI travelled to Barranquilla: aside from the director of the IWI, Prof. Voß, also our PhD-student Adriana Moros-Daza, who studies in a dual degree program given by the Universidad Del Norte and the UHH, as well as Dr. Kai Brüssau attended the conference.

At summery temperatures, the guests of this year’s ICCL - originating from five continents - were warmly welcomed in the beautiful city of Barranquilla and greeted personally by Prof. Dr. Carlos Paternina-Arboleda at the modern premises of the Universidad Del Norte.

The keynotes were held by people from academia and from industry as well as from the army: Jose Holguin-Veras, Miguel Jaller, Benjamin Hazen, and Ivan Saavedra.

The single tracks of the Conference were related to the topics of freight transportation, urban logistics, vehicle routing problems, maritime logistics, manufacturing, and distribution, as well as decision support systems.

Most of the presentations laid strong emphasis on the topic of sustainability; the researchers tried to tackle the problem of CO2-reduction and a systematic, economic and infrastructural development of Colombia within their specific research fields, e.g. an efficient flow control in maritime logistic chains.

All presentations were very interesting and of a high scientific quality as well as inspiring interrelated discussions.

The practical conference organization was very noteworthy as it included many organizing assistants who were at the attendees’ disposal at any time and also guided them from A to B.

Additionally, the conference was able to offer some fabulous social events; for instance, the welcome cocktail during which different traditional Barranquillan dishes were introduced, and which took place at the NH Hotel. This hotel also sponsored the conference. Another memorable event was the barge trip over the Magdalena River to the river delta and port entrance, called the “Boca De Cenizas”, including an informative presentation of the river’s history. During the conference dinner, which took place in a Caribbean fish restaurant, a group of dancers, the “Groupo De Millo”, presented a Barranquillan carnival show during which they performed typical carnival dances that animated the conference guests to dance along.

To put it in a nutshell, the ICCL’s first round anniversary was a complete success!