“Sardinia Land of Innovation – Investment Opportunities”, an event to promote the Sardinia Region’s initiatives in the field of innovation in the digital and ICT sector and the investment opportunities it provides, took place yesterday at the Italian Embassy in London, in collaboration with the Italian Trade Agency. The event aimed to favour networking and cooperation between entrepreneurs in the start-up sector from Sardinia and their UK based counterparts and potential international investors. The initiative is also part of the embassy’s latest series of events named Italy for Innovation, which highlights innovation connecting Italy and the United Kingdom.
Ambassador Raffaele Trombetta introduced the working sessions of the event, highlighting the strong focus that the Sardinia Region has placed on innovation and the promotion of its start-up sector.
In the past three years, the Ambassador pointed out, the Region has received 200 requests from start-ups, to participate, following its announcement calling for companies to take part in its internationalisation proposals, which bears witness to the strong growth in the field of technological innovation and ICT’s, also in terms of the sector’s commercial development. This trend has also seen a parallel growth of high-tech exports.
The President of the Region of Sardinia, Francesco Pigliaru, presented plans to foster international collaboration in regards to technological and digital development and in research and in the region’s support of start-ups wishing to expand to global markets.
Among the activities being promoted in London, three projects that offer investment opportunities were presented: The Aria Project (Chemical purification of the Underground Argon UAr), regarding chemical processes to purify Argon, with possible impact on sectors such as energy, environment and agriculture.
This session was followed by a presentation by Engineer Andrea Preve, on the Space Propulsion Test Facility Project (SpaceLab, a company affiliated to AVIO-ASI) and its creation of infrastructure for space tests and research. Professor Massimo Carpinelli, Chancellor of the University of Sassari, introduced the SAR-GRAV Project – Sardina Underground Laboratory, a first module for the EinsteinTelescope Infrastructure, which will detect gravitational waves.
A presentation of DistrICT, the technological district of ICT and startup ecosystem of Sardinia, whose aim is to promote new entrepreneurial initiatives and the development of innovative technology with possibility of international growth, also took place.
A later working session to promote Sardinia’s innovation programme, showcased case studies of successful foreign investment projects that have taken place on the island. The first speaker was Annalisa Bonfiglio (Chairperson of the Board of Directors at CRS4, the Center for Advanced Studies, Research and Development in Sardinia), who discussed the work being conducted there. This was followed by presentations by Giulio Soro (Head of Solutions Architecture Emerging Markets/Ro EMEA Public Sector Amazon Web Services), who talked about the prospects of future development which led to the opening of Amazon offices in Cagliari in 2014. Alessandro Onano, Chief Marketing Officer at Moneyfarm, a financial consultancy founded by two Italians based in London which has bases in Cagliari and Milan, discussed the company. The last talk was given by Paola Marinone, co-founder of BuzzMyVideos, on the Italian London-based startup which in 2016 opened a hub for technological development in Cagliari.
The sessions concluded with pitches made by young entrepreneurs who discussed their respective 11 innovative startups: ArtBackers, Bautiful Box, CagliariApp, Cube Controls, Endando Srl, GreenShare, Healthy Virtuoso, IntendiMe, Playcar, Sudlegno, WAUniversity, whose participation has been coordinated by the start-up accelerator TechitaliaLab, which has its main offices in London and by the Italian Trade Agency.
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