Great success for the Open Innovation Workshop: Opportunities for the Environment and Healthcare
On July 16th the workshop organised by the Scientific and Technology Park of Sicily was held at the Centro Fieristico Le Ciminiere in Catania as part of the event called ‘Catania 2020 Environment and Environments’.
Open innovation, digital evolution, and co-innovation were the main themes.
The workshop explored innovation in all its aspects and pinpointed the objectives which have been achieved so far within the framework of the cooperation project between Italy and Malta called I-KNOW (Interregional Key Networking for Open innovation empoWerment). It was an opportunity for companies, start-up businesses, researchers, and institutions to meet and share ideas.
The workshop was extremely interesting and the attendees carefully listened to and appreciated all the speakers.
Giuseppe Scuderi, the President of the Scientific and Technology Park of Sicily (PSTS) gave the welcome speech and illustrated the role of PSTS in the scenario of Sicilian innovation.
Other speakers then took the floor, in particular:
Antonio Perdichizzi, from the Catania office of Confindustria, the Italian employerìs federation, who greeted all the participants on behalf of the President Antonello Biriaco, who expressed his appreciation for the initiative and Confindustria’s availability to support participatory innovation processes, Antonio Terrasi, the person in charge of Technological Transfer and Relationships with Enterprises for the University of Catania, who emphasized the educational role university plays in the field of innovation for researchers, start-uppers and those with innovative ideas and also how it is willing to establish closer exchanges among all the actors in the area of Catania; and Giuseppe Mancini, the Coordinator of the Technical Committees ECOMED 2020 and PROGETTOCOMFORT 2020, presented the themes of the event ‘Catania 2020 Environment and Environments’. He declared his satisfaction for the topics of the workshop as it was going to provide a positive perspective, which is crucial to trigger development in Sicily.
Sebastiano Di Stefano, the Project Manager of the Scientific and Technology Park of Sicily, kicked off and chaired the workshop. He started by extensively presenting the I-KNOW project, its goals and outcomes.
Then, experts on Open Innovation Ecosystems and Circular Economy took the floor. In particular, Fabrizio Conicella, the President of the Association of Italian Scientific and Technology Parks spoke about ‘converging innovation’, i.e., the converging of interests among scientific and research parks, SMEs and big companies. Then, Antonella Luciano, a researcher at ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development), presented a successful case study of circular economy.
Then followed Camillo Gioè of the company Elmi, who presented the platform Open Innovation Service Lab of the I-KNOW project, an acceleration tool open to businesses, start-ups, spin-offs, researchers, investors, clusters, associations and to all those who wish to play a proactive role in providing services, establishing partnerships and creating business opportunities. It is a true virtual lab to create and seize opportunities for exchanges and business relationships.
Un vero laboratorio virtuale per creare e cogliere le opportunità di scambio e di relazioni.
Francesco Pinelli, the manager of Service 6.S “Technical Coordination Unit for the Regional Innovation Strategy” of the Sicily Region Production Activities Department, illustrated the measures and tools that the Sicily Region has implemented to support Sicilian SMEs and start-up businesses.
The last section of the workshop had a great impact as it presented stories of innovative start-ups in the environmental and healthcare sectors with a focus on promoting and seeking business opportunities.
Here follows a list of participants:
Francesco Pappalardo, Mimesis, Gianna Tempera, NaCTUre S.r.l., Dario Santonocito, Air Factories, Angela Anna Messina, we.MitoBiotech, Rossella Vadalà, Edypak, Giovanni Merlino, Domusys, Salvatore Gallo, Gem S.r.l., Giuseppe Guido, Somos S.r.l.; and David Falliano, ReConcrete.
The three-day initiative was very successful, and the Scientific and Technology Park of Sicily, the lead partner of the cooperation project Interreg Italy-Malta I-KNOW, besides organizing the workshop, put up a stand to present and provide information about its new platform ‘Open Innovation Service Lab’, which drew many visitors
