Startup Grind Pisa&Lucca is born.
At the Polo di Navacchio appointment with Open Innovation
New Tuscan chapter of community for innovators in partnership with Google for Startups;
Guests at the launch event Riccardo Bruschi (TT Tecnosistemi), Giovanni Polidori and Federico Davini (A11-Venture), Alberto Ratti (BIBA Venture Partners), Massimiliano Bartolozzi (Lucart) and Alfonso Santitoro (Startup24)
Tuesday, March 12, 5:00 p.m. Polo Tecnologico Navacchio - Incubator Auditorium Via Giuntini, 13 - Navacchio (Pisa)
PRESS RELEASE
Open Innovation in the words and experiences of those who 'build' it every day. Tuesday, March 12, at 5 p.m., in the Incubator Auditorium of the Polo Tecnologico di Navacchio (Pisa) is scheduled "Open Innovation: the Future is Now," the launch event of Startup Grind Pisa&Lucca, a new Tuscan chapter of the community for entrepreneurs in partnership with Google for Startups. An appointment designed for startups and innovators who want to relaunch their business in the national territory and outside the borders of the Peninsula, who will listen to the voices of important players in the Italian and foreign ecosystem of innovation and will have the opportunity to make themselves known during the usual Community Time.
After greetings from Andrea Di Benedetto, president of the Navacchio Technology Cluster, the meeting will get into full swing with a Fireside Chat attended by representatives from the world of entrepreneurship, venture capital, and corporate venture.
Alberto Ratti, Project Manager at the international level, Co-founder and Managing Partner of BIBA Venture Partners - a strategic consulting firm with HQ in Barcelona and offices in Milan and Lisbon - will interview Riccardo Bruschi, founder, president and CEO of TT Tecnosistemi, Prato-based Information & Communication Technology Reseller and System Integrator, one of the most leading Italian players capable of designing, implementing and delivering innovative IT solutions. TT Tecnosistemi - which has been on the market since 1984 and now has offices in Bologna, Modena, Arezzo and Imola, in addition to the one in Prato - invests in shares in companies of excellence to improve and complete its offerings, also collaborating with research groups, startups and cutting-edge companies. It has won numerous awards over the years: the last two came in February, when it was awarded the Imprese x Innovazione (IxI) Prize from Confindustria, given to the best twelve Italian companies able to maintain and increase their competitive advantage through 360-degree innovation, and the prestigious National Innovation Award - "Prize of Prizes" 2018, instituted by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers by mandate of the President of the Republic, which was collected on March 4 at a ceremony in the Senate.
Also answering Ratti's questions will be Giovanni Polidori and Federico Davini of A11-Venture (Lucca), which invests in the capital of innovative Seed-stage startups, mainly in the robotics, automation, mechatronics, cleantech, web and IT sectors, facilitating the birth and development of innovative global businesses for the future of the local economy. VC Advisor & Investment Manager, Open Innovation Advisor & Manager, Polidori is Co-Promoter and Member of the Investment Committee of A11 and has decades of managerial experience in business aggregation models, R&D and technology transfer activities and within the Italian startup ecosystem. Davini, a member of A11's Venture Investment Board, is a business developer and financial advisor in the IT business sector, working on business model development and managing the drafting of business plans and financial planning, particularly for new ideas and startups.
There will be, again, Massimiliano Bartolozzi, CIO of Lucart (Lucca), a leading European manufacturer of household and professional paper.
Finally, the floor will go to Alfonso Santitoro, a very young digital entrepreneur who already has numerous collaborations under his belt as an expert in Digital Marketing on behalf of startups and enterprises and Ico. An organizer of events in the digital sphere, Santitoro is the creator of Startup24, the first American-style event in Italy dedicated to aspiring startuppers, which will be held in Milan on May 9, 2019, and will bring together top experts in the field in a single day.
Startup Grind is the independent startup community that educates, inspires and connects 2 million entrepreneurs around the world, leveraging a partnership with Google for Startups. Founded in 2009 in Palo Alto, Silicon Valley, by California entrepreneur Derek Andersen, SG 'nurtures' the startup ecosystem through regular events with innovators, educators and investors who share experiences and learnings, and over the years has helped millions of entrepreneurs find mentorship, connect with new partners, get funding and reach new users. Today it has more than 500 chapters - including 25 in Italy - in as many cities and 125 countries.
The Startup Grind Pisa&Lucca chapter The cities of Pisa and Lucca represent a particularly fertile territory in terms of research and innovation: the former because of the presence of the universities-the University of Pisa, the Scuola Normale Superiore, and the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, leaders in robotics; the latter because of the thriving industries in the shipbuilding, paper, sports betting, and textile sectors. Both, moreover, boast the presence of Technological Poles - the Navacchio and Lucchese Poles - where numerous companies and startups work daily on issues of innovation and applied research, and several Research Centers - in the Province of Pisa INFN, CNR, CNIT, Cubit, Po.Te.Co., Pont-Tech, EndoCAS, "Enrico Piaggio" Research Center; in the Province of Lucca IMT, LUCENSE, Zero Waste Research Center. And, again, many industrial companies in both Pisa and Lucca have their own Research Centers in which they invest, on average, between 5 percent and 10 percent of their turnover. The Startup Grind Pisa&Lucca chapter aims to act as a catalyst between the strengths that characterize the two cities, creating opportunities for the different realities in the field to meet and collaborate.
Its founders - managers, innovation professionals, entrepreneurs, university professors, marketing and communication experts - set themselves the ambitious goal of growing the value of the area through community and networking, with a view to Open Innovation. All this by attracting capital and international attention to what constitutes one of the most fervid areas in Italy in terms of quality and quantity of talent present, number of patents, scientific research produced, and turnover of industrial companies. Moreover, thanks to the support of Google for Startups, Startup Grind Pisa&Lucca intends to support local startups toward internationalization.
The founding team consists of:
- Salvatore Rosania (Director), CFO and Business Tech Advisor in IoT&AI;
- Luca Del Col (Co-Director), CEO Partitalia and Tech Advisor in IoT&AI;
- Riccardo Bruschi (Mentor), Founder and CEO TT Tecnosistemi;
- Paolo Ferragina (Computer Science&AI Mentor), Professor of Algorithms and Director PhD in Computer Science, University of Pisa;
- Leonardo Villella (Marketing Manager), Tourism Marketing and SEO Consultant;
- Paola Ciaramella (Communication Manager), journalist and Web Content Editor;
- Alfredo Salvatore (IoT&AI Digital Evangelist), CEO SensorId e Tech Advisor in IoT&AI; Matteo Piras (Enthusiastic Supporter), Founder e CEO StarsUp, Lead Investor Feral Horses;
- Marco Magnarosa (IoT Digital Evangelist), Tech Advisor;
- Beatrice Del Col (International Communication Manager), a student of international relations and global affairs at Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, and other innovation professionals.
