Guest Lecture at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), MISDI students

It was a great pleasure for Naxxar Tech founder Leif Ollivierre to recently speak with MISDI students at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), exploring the journey from ideation to product and the growing intersection between technology and traditional industries.

Under the theme “The Intersection of Technology and Industry: What’s Next in the Digital Age?”, the session provided an opportunity to share practical experiences from building technology businesses and discuss how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, automation and data analytics are reshaping established industries.

Drawing on the Naxxar Tech journey, the discussion explored an important question facing the next generation of entrepreneurs and technology leaders: How do you turn an innovative idea into a product that solves a genuine industry problem?

Great Technology Starts with a Real Problem

One of the central themes of the discussion was that successful innovation rarely begins with technology alone.

It begins with understanding a problem.

For founders developing solutions for established industries, this means spending time understanding how the industry actually operates, where inefficiencies exist and why existing solutions may not adequately address them.

This has been an important principle throughout the development of Naxxar Tech.

Global supply chains move enormous volumes of cargo every day, yet businesses can still experience limited visibility once goods begin their journey. Shipment information may be fragmented across different organisations, systems and transport modes, making it difficult for cargo owners to obtain a complete real-time picture of their supply chains.

At the same time, companies are facing increasing demands to understand and report the environmental impact associated with transporting their goods.

These industry challenges helped shape the development of Naxxar Tech.

Rather than starting with technology and searching for a problem, our approach has been to identify genuine supply-chain challenges and determine how technologies such as IoT, AI and data analytics can help solve them.

Moving from Ideation to Product

Having a strong idea is only the beginning of the entrepreneurial journey.

Turning that idea into a viable technology product requires continuous experimentation, customer feedback and iteration.

The discussion with MISDI students explored the importance of moving beyond assumptions and testing ideas in real-world environments.

Early-stage founders often begin with a vision of what they believe the market needs. However, conversations with customers, partners and industry experts frequently reveal that the real challenge — or the most valuable solution — may be different from what was originally imagined.

Product development therefore becomes a continuous cycle of building, testing, learning and improving.

The Naxxar Tech journey has followed this process as we have developed a platform combining real-time cargo visibility, digital inspections and automated emissions monitoring.

Each stage of development has provided new insights into how customers interact with technology and what information they need to make better supply-chain decisions.

Where Technology Meets Industry Knowledge

Another important theme of the session was the relationship between technological capability and industry expertise.

Artificial intelligence, IoT, digital twins and automation are creating extraordinary opportunities for innovation. However, technology becomes significantly more powerful when combined with a deep understanding of the industry in which it is being deployed.

Shipping and logistics provide a particularly good example.

The global supply chain is an enormously complex ecosystem involving cargo owners, freight forwarders, shipping lines, ports, terminals, customs authorities, road transport operators, rail networks and many other stakeholders.

Developing technology for this environment requires understanding not only what is technically possible but also how cargo actually moves through the physical world.

At Naxxar Tech, we believe the intersection between industry knowledge and emerging technology is where some of the most important innovations will emerge.

The Next Digital Age

The discussion also looked towards the future and considered how the next generation of digital technologies could transform traditional industries.

AI is rapidly becoming capable of analysing enormous amounts of information and identifying patterns that would be difficult to detect manually.

IoT is connecting physical assets and enabling them to continuously generate operational data.

Automation is reducing repetitive processes and enabling organisations to operate more efficiently.

Digital twins are creating virtual representations of physical assets and operations.

When these technologies converge, the possibilities become significantly more powerful.

In global logistics, for example, a connected container can generate real-time information about its location and condition. AI can analyse that information alongside other supply-chain data to identify anomalies or potential disruptions. Digital platforms can then transform that information into actionable intelligence for businesses.

This evolution represents a move from simply digitising existing processes towards creating intelligent and increasingly autonomous systems.

Building Technology That Creates Impact

For the students considering careers in technology, innovation or entrepreneurship, one of the key messages from the session was the importance of focusing on impact.

The most successful technology products do not necessarily begin with the most complicated technology.

They begin by solving meaningful problems.

Whether improving global supply chains, financial services, healthcare, energy or another industry, entrepreneurs need to understand the people and organisations they are building for.

The challenge is then to combine that understanding with technology in a way that delivers measurable value.

For Naxxar Tech, that means continuing to explore how cargo intelligence can help businesses create smarter, more visible and more sustainable supply chains.

Supporting the Next Generation of Innovators

Engaging with students and future entrepreneurs is an important opportunity to share not only successes but also the realities of building technology companies.

The journey from an initial idea to a scalable product involves experimentation, setbacks, pivots, learning and persistence.

Having the opportunity to discuss these experiences with MISDI students at LSE was therefore particularly rewarding.

The questions and discussions demonstrated the ambition of a new generation of innovators who will be responsible for developing many of the technologies and businesses that shape the next digital age.

A special thank you to Rida Khan, Gonzalo San Roman, Marianna Lymperopoulou and Govind Sankar for making the session possible, and to the MISDI students for the engaging discussion and thoughtful questions.

As technology continues to transform established industries, the greatest opportunities may increasingly exist at the intersection between deep industry knowledge, entrepreneurship and emerging technology.

The next digital age will not simply be about developing new technologies. It will be about applying them to solve real-world problems and create meaningful impact.

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