The Pietro Fiorentini Group and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center launched the Sustainable Energy Venture program on 7 March, the call for national and international startups and SMEs aimed at identifying and supporting the best technologies related to the development of the hydrogen supply chain and the reduction of CO₂ emissions. The call is aimed at startups and SMEs that offer solutions in the areas of Carbon Capture, Utilization & Storage, Hydrogen Value Chain and Solutions and ancillary services to the hydrogen supply chain. Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, through the Startup Initiative platform, will support the management of the Pietro Fiorentini Group in selecting the applications received and in tutoring the companies that will be selected to participate in the project. The winning startups / SMEs of the program will be able to evaluate with the board of the Pietro Fiorentini Group different possibilities of collaboration from a production, economic and financial point of view.

Terra Next, the new acceleration program for innovative startups and SMEs in the Bioeconomy sector, was launched in Naples. The project was born on the initiative of CDP Venture Capital together with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the management of the program is entrusted to Cariplo Factory.

The Bioeconomy is already an excellence of Made in Italy and boasts a production value of 317 billion euros in Italy in 2020. Also in 2020, the sector employed 2 million workers, 7.9% of total national employment (value that rises to 10.7% in the South alone), thus revealing itself to be a sector with a high intensity of development for employment.Terra Next was born precisely with the aim of accelerating entrepreneurial skills and creating synergies with industrial players, creating a new innovation ecosystem that enhances Southern Italy.With an initial budget of approximately 3.8 million euros allocated by the Accelerators Fund of CDP Venture Capital in addition to approximately 1.3 million allocated by the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and its partners, the accelerator is designed over a 3-year time span. Each year, a 12-week acceleration program based in Naples will be launched, in which the selected startups will have the opportunity to grow through mentorship, training, networking and moments of in-depth study.

The call will close on March 30, 2022.

After two programs focused on Smart Mobility, Techstars launched Italy’s first-ever accelerator focused on Smart Cities, investing in companies that disrupt the way we live today, providing new solutions for growing populations, transportation, housing, energy, infrastructure challenges as well as for employment and basic services such as education and health care.

This year the program is again in presence at the Turin OGR and startups will be able to benefit from an ecosystem, that of Turin, which is constantly growing and which has led over the past editions to various collaborations between startups and local companies and the Municipality of Turin.

Can an acceleration program foster the development of Italian excellences? According to the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, Fondazione CR Firenze, Nana Bianca e Fondazione per la Ricerca e l’Innovazione dell’Università di Firenze, the answer is yes, without a doubt.

With this optimistic spirit and attentive to the territory, the new acceleration program for startups 'Italian Lifestyle' was launched on 4 October with a press conference held at the Granaio dell'Abbondanza. The program aims to bring together the large companies of the territory operating in the fashion, tourism and food sectors to startups offering innovative solutions and technologies.

Italian Lifestyle will be developed into 3 years and aims at the growth of the Florentine ecosystem, as also stated by Maurizio Montagnese, Chairman of the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center: 'The goal of programs such as 'Italian Lifestyle' is to encourage collaboration between large companies rooted in the area and new business ideas capable of contributing to the development and renewal of even more traditional businesses'.

On 22 september the new Startup Genome report about Torino, was launched at the London Tech Week.

Startup Genome is the world-leading innovation policy advisory and research firm, having advised the ecosystem development strategy and action plans for more than 40 governments in the last year. This year, thanks to Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and Compagnia di Sanpaolo, it analyzed the Turin scenario.

The report reviews the Turin ecosystem from different point of views: Smart Cities, AI, Big Data e Analytics, giving some strong reasons to move there.

As you can see in the report, local stakeholders are working hard to transform the city into a test-bed for cutting-edge technologies, particularly in the field of Smart Cities.

Intesa Sanpaolo Formazione, the training company of Intesa Sanpaolo, in collaboration with the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center organizes the online course of high management training 'Circular Economy: new business models' for the development and transformation of businesses in market scenarios in constant evolution. The training course of the Academy of Intesa Sanpaolo and Intesa Sanpaolo Formazione is designed to enhance skills and increase the competitive advantage of your company. Aimed at Entrepreneurs, Executives and managers belonging to all company areas, with particular reference to the strategic planning, commercial & marketing, logistics & operations, compliance & legal, ict & innovation and human resource areas, the Advanced Training Course is fully digital to respond to the contingency of the current historical period and to meet the logistical needs of participants from all over the country. During the online meetings, the students will find a dedicated learning environment, where they can experience a formative, engaging and interactive experience: the structure and the program have been defined by CeTIF-Università Cattolica, Intesa Sanpaolo Formazione and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center in collaboration with experts from the Circular Economy Lab of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

The first half of 2021 of the Venture Capital Monitor – VeM, research report on venture capital operations in Italy, was presented during the press conference on 19 July. The study was carried out by the Venture Capital Monitor - VeM Observatory active at Liuc Business School and realized thanks to the contribution of the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and E. Morace & Co. law firm and the institutional support of CDP Venture Capital SGR and IBAN, with the goal of developing permanent monitoring of the institutional early stage activity carried out in our country. In the first half of 2021, 100 transactions were realized in Italian startups for an amount equal to almost 400 million euros, a fact which demonstrates the liveliness of venture capital and the resilience of our country. ”For our part, the activities of acceleration, investment with Neva SGR and financial support for startups have neither stopped nor slowed down and have contributed to achieving this result”- says Maurizio Montagnese, Chairman of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

The AI Seminar | Fairness in Neural Networks, held in Italian by Mattia Cerrato - Researcher at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität in Mainz is part of a series of events organized by the Artificial Intelligence Lab of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center that aim to illustrate and disseminate the evolution of research conducted in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

The seminar, curated by Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, is scheduled by remote connection on Friday May 7th at 12.00-13.00. The seminar will be held in Italian.

This seminar will discuss new approaches and methodologies developed to link neural network training to fairer behavior. We will see how to ensure that the 'hidden' representation learned from neural networks is invariant with respect to some selected attributes and we will illustrate two ways to improve the explainability of these models without compromising their equity.

Click here to join the seminar

The Venture Capital Monitor, a complete annual report that captures the situation of investments in innovation in our country, was presented during the press conference on 25 February. The study demonstrates how venture capital is a real boost to development and how, despite the difficult period, it is constantly growing with the birth of new players and new ecosystems.

The report analyzes the results of venture capital investments with an updated mapping of the data and, compared to previous years, adds an in-depht analysis of Business Angels and the early stage market.

The Venture Capital Monitor was drawn up by AIFI (Italian Association of Private Equity, Venture Capital and Private Debt) in collaboration with LIUC - Business School, and saw the support of the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center and participation in the steering committee of Guido de Vecchi. As de Vecchi states “even in a very special year, we have continuously contributed to achieving the results reported by the VeM.“

The report Open Innovation in Italy - The key factors for the success of the innovation activity of an Italian company, prepared by COTEC - Fondazione per l'Innovazione, in collaboration with Enel Foundation and the Libera Università Internazionale degli Studi Sociali Guido Carli - LUISS, was presented on 24 February. This year the report was dedicated to open innovation, one of the most effective methods to bring innovation in companies and thus increase their profitability. The report analyzes in depth the state of open innovation in Italy and presents interesting stories of innovation.  Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center has contributed with the presentation of its Startup Initiative program, the Iren Startup Award case history and an editorial by Chairman Maurizio Montagnese, that talks about the mission and projects of Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

The Circular Economy Lab has given its contribution to the latest Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s paper Universal circular economy policy goals: enabling the transition to scale, released on 28th January 2021. This report aims to create a common direction of travel in policy development for a faster transition to a circular economy and indicates five universal policy goals:

#1. Stimulate design
Enable all products to be designed, accessed, and used in ways that eliminate waste and pollution.
#2. Manage resources to preserve value
Promote the development of business models that keep products and materials in the economy at their highest possible value.
#3. Make the economics work
Create economic incentives and set regulatory requirements that enable circular economy solutions to become the norm.
#4. Invest in innovation, infrastructure and skills
Invest public money and stimulate private sector investment to develop the skills required to create circular economy opportunities.
#5. Collaborate for system change
Work across government departments, nationally and internationally to build policy alignment and durable change.

The launch event took place on the 2nd February and have seen the participation of Massimiano Tellini, Director Global Head of Circular Economy at Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center.

Techstars, Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation, CRT Foundation and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center announced the 12 startups selected from hundreds from 4 continents and 54 countries around the world that, from 25th of January, have officially joined the Techstars Smart Mobility Accelerator 2021, the first startup acceleration program in Europe dedicated to Smart Mobility.

The program, for now all virtual, will last 13 weeks and will culminate on the Demo Day of 22 April 2021 with the presentation of the results to a wide audience of venture capitalists, business angels, investors, entrepreneurs and institutions.

Of the 12 startups selected by Techstars - leading global accelerator that has already supported over 2,300 new startups with 43 programs worldwide - 4 are Italian, 3 English, 2 Israeli, 1 American, 1 Portuguese and 1 Latvian: Blink, Cargofive, Crispify, Deliverart, Duet, eTEU, Imperium Drive, Kedeon, Latitudo 40, Prognostic, Trailze, and Wiseair. The range of industrial sectors covered by the proposals is very wide: supply chain, logistics, automotive, air quality, industry 4.0, micromobility, and satellite monitoring.

As stated by Maurizio Montagnese, “this year too, despite the limitations imposed by the health emergency, we expect that the excellent realities selected from all over the world will be able to grow and implement new projects in our country.”

2020 has been a year in which innovation and technology both offering solutions to international challenges such as Brexit and Covid-19.

The Italian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in the UK, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, will host a virtual panel in which important representatives of the UK corporate, banking and innovation scene will take part; this will be followed by a pitch session dedicated to Italian technological companies capable of providing innovative solutions in response to the current international scenario.

The webinar will take place on December 16, 2020 at 10.00am GMT (11:00 am CET); the round table - moderated by G.M. Volpicelli, senior editor at Wired UK - will see the participation of IBM, Intesa Sanpaolo and London&Partners. Afterwards, the Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center will introduce the pitch session dedicated to 4 Italian startups able to offer innovative technological solutions.

In times of pandemic, Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center made its contribution with two important projects of its Laboratories.

The first, by the Neuroscience Lab, studied the impact on individuals and the community of the period we are experiencing, analyzing what happens in our brain in situations of anxiety and fear and trying to give precise indications to avoid situations of psychological suffering. This is the study called “COVID-19 Pandemic: the impact on socio-emotional well-being from a neuroscientific perspective”.

The Artificial Intelligence Lab, in collaboration with the epidemiology laboratory of the Sacco Hospital in Milan, has classified the genomic sequences of the virus collected in various hospitals, managing to quickly isolate around 1500 genomic sequences, identifying mutations and highlighting three different strains of the virus. An important step to learn more about the pandemic and to fight it, but also a beautiful example of public-private collaboration in research.

On November 12th, the public event of the Alleanza per l’Economia Circolare was held online. During the meeting the new Position Paper 2020 was presented, in the presence of the Deputy Minister for Economic Development Stefano Buffagni.

The Alleanza per l’Economia Circolare, of which Intesa Sanpaolo is also a member together with 17 other Italian companies, gathers and disseminates knowledge, involves people, associations, interest groups and addresses the government and Europe. The goal is to carry on the real circularity that aims to minimize the consumption in all its forms.

The Alleanza’s new Position Paper 2020 presents the road map towards a circular economic model: five objectives and 23 detailed actions aimed at making full use of the potential for economic, social, environmental and decarbonization development linked to the circular economy. A 7% increase in investment, a 10% reduction in raw material costs, as well as 700.000 new jobs in Europe by 2030 and a 56% drop in CO2 emissions by 2050.

The Position Paper 2020, composed of 16 sheets with projects and good practices that demonstrate the effectiveness of circularity and the concreteness of the commitment of all Alleanza members. It deepens their experiences focusing on: key value chains in the consumer goods, circular bioeconomy, chemistry and engineering, energy and utilities, finance, fashion and luxury, shipbuilding industry, catering and tourism sectors.

The event was also an opportunity to welcome the new member, Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane.

The main circular economy projects and the points of view of companies were also shared, told by CEOs and Presidents of some of the Alleanza companies. The event was an opportunity to discussion with representatives of the Government, in order to shed light on the evolution of policies for the circular economy and the next steps.