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Introducing a portable digital identity that consolidates training, certification, sea-time, and compliance

By Peter Schellenberger

At its official launch at the shipping exhibition Posidonia in Greece, LEDGID – a tool to make verified professional identity, credentials and compliance records portable, auditable and reusable across the seafarer lifecycle – named The Mission to Seafarers as its official welfare partner.

The two organisations share a belief that the world’s seafarers deserve more than the system they have inherited, and that there needs to be practical means to deliver something better.

For 170 years, the Mission has stood beside seafarers in every corner of the global shipping network. From its founding in 1856 to its work today across more than 200 ports in over 50 countries, the Flying Angel has become one of the most recognised symbols of welfare at sea. That global presence is the foundation on which the partnership is built.

Seafarers already know the Mission, its centres and its chaplains, and they know the support is genuine, confidential and free. What LEDGID adds is a way of turning everyday port visits, training opportunities and welfare touchpoints into moments where seafarers can also take ownership of their professional identity. A chaplain visiting a vessel in a busy port can introduce a seafarer to a system that protects their career history. A port centre offering Wi-Fi and a quiet seat can become the place where a seafarer first claims ownership of their professional record. The Mission’s Happy at Sea app, already in the hands of thousands of seafarers worldwide, becomes a familiar gateway into the digital identity infrastructure shaping the future of maritime employment.
The value runs in both directions. For the Mission, the partnership extends its work of practical care into the digital sphere, equipping the seafarers it serves with tools that protect their livelihoods, not only their wellbeing. For LEDGID, it ensures the platform is shaped by the realities of life at sea rather than the assumptions of those who have never been there. For the seafarer at the centre of it all, it means the welfare organisation they already trust and the digital infrastructure they increasingly need are working together rather than in isolation.

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Anchored in a user-owned digital profile, LEDGID records verification as an auditable event and enables trust to be carried and shared, with consent, across employers, operators, vendors and other authorised stakeholders. Its doctrine is expressed in four words: neutral, trust, portability, reuse.

For seafarers, it is a portable digital identity that consolidates training, certification, sea-time, and compliance records with direct access to jobs globally. For employers and crew managers, LEDGID offers instant access to a global talent pool of verified seafarers with secure, portable digital profiles that eliminate guesswork, while for flag states and regulators, it offers access to fully digital Seaman’s Books, giving real-time oversight of seafarer compliance, training, and certifications with fraud-proof credentials.

LEDGID was founded by three established figures in maritime technology and seafarer welfare. I am one of three co-founders and directors, as well as the founder of maritime consultancy Novamaxis and a recognised voice on connectivity, digitalisation and crew welfare across the global fleet. Henning Davies, co-founder and director, brings deep commercial experience from the maritime learning and operational technology sector, having held senior leadership positions at Ocean Technologies Group, one of the industry’s largest training and crewing software groups, serving more than a million seafarers worldwide. Ronald Spithout, co-founder and director, is the former president of Inmarsat Maritime, founder of MariDISC and a SMART4SEA Leadership Award winner, with more than three decades of experience driving digital transformation at sea.

The company is further guided by senior industry advisers, including David Price, vice president marine at Gulf Oil Marine and a qualified Master Mariner with more than four decades of maritime experience, and Deepak Shetty, former director general of shipping for the Government of India.

LEDGID’s welfare partnership with the Mission will be activated through joint programmes across port centres and welfare touchpoints in the coming months, alongside continued integration work with the Happy at Sea app and ongoing collaboration on advocacy, research and seafarer engagement. Look out for further announcements on specific port activations, training programmes and joint initiatives which will follow throughout the year.

Peter Schellenberger is co-founder and director of LEDGID.