In International Shipping News 13/04/2015
The Danish company C-Alarm offers now help to organize certificates and keep track of expiration dates. The registration will not even require a credit card.
Jesper Svegaard, who is the brain behind the new company, explains the decision to offer the service free: “When we decided to develop this system, the motivation behind was not really to create a business, but more related to solve the problem that many sailors face with expiring certificates. Thus, we have decided to offer the service free. If the system proves it worth and the users are happy with the service, we will consider a micro payment, but in that case the payment will be a very small amount that should be no problem for anyone”
C-Alarm is a relatively simple system that can help sailors to avoid unpleasant situations with unexpected expired certificates. The user can create an unlimited number of certificates, scan and save them in the system, type in expiration dates and then benefit from free reminders on SMS and e-mail.
The question is how people keep track of the certificates now. Mr. Sveegaard continues to explain “Normally people will use a home developed excel system or Outlook. It happens quite often that people forget to renew a certificate, and this can have dramatic consequences or they have to squeeze the re-certification into the calendar with short notice. Another relevant issue is that people´s computers break down, they forget to check the excel sheet or they change company and move from one Outlook to another and forget to get the reminders with them. With this system, you have full access to all certificates at all time as long as you can get online, and the user will be notified by SMS and e-mail up to two times. This allows long term planning for re-certification and another benefit is that in case you forget to bring a certificate or you lose it, then you can just find a PC with internet connection, log in, click download and you are able to show a scanned copy.”
When documents are saved in the system, they are stored in an encrypted version to avoid hacking.
C-Alarm have been received with positive interest by the Danish maritime community with many Danish users and now is the time to offer this service to sailors from all over the world.
