At BIAT's 3 Day event in southern Italy, some interesting projects
The 3 day event consists of networking and panels, but the bulk of the time is reserved for startups and investors to meet one-on-one in 2 pre-matched and organized speed dating rotating sessions each day.
The projects presented this year came from Green Economy, ICT, Bio Health Tech, Robotics and Automation, Space Economy and Smart City sectors. In total, 76 startups from eight southern Italian municipalities participated in one-to-one meetings with 54 potential investors, or partners from 27 countries, including Canada, USA, Singapore, Lebanon, Croatia, United Kingdom, India, Japan and Finland.
Here are some interesting projects presented by Italian startups:
Visafy wants to streamline the process of visa applications. The visa application process is available for many countries, including The United States, Thailand, UK, Australia, Russia and China at the moment.
ASPRID Airport System Protection From Intruding Drones is an EU funded project coordinated by Inta. More than a million euro have been received from the EU's Horizon program for research and development of systems to protect airport areas from rogue-drone flights over non-authorised areas by detecting and neutralising drones.
Preinvel claims to have invented the first filterless air-purifier in the world to address industrial pollution.
The company claims to have built, tested and validated a device that can stop particles smaller than 1 micron.
The solution does not include mechanical or electrical filters, but uses a patented airflow mechanism to perform the task. There is no cost of filters and the work needed to change them.
A more comprehensive list can be found at the BIAT web pages.
After three days of intensive meetings and networking, the delegates go back home with a stack of business cards and new contact infos, but the discussion has just started. Each BIAT edition has brought investments to Italian companies and this one will be no exception. The event, which is supported by the EU and fully organized by the Italian Trade Agency, would be a good-practice model to copy to other countries in Europe and beyond.
BIAT La Borsa dell Innovazione e dell Alta Tecnologia, an initiative of the Italian Trade Agency, is the most prominent event included in the Piano Export Sud a comprehensive 5 year action plan designed to benefit SMEs, start-ups, university spin-offs and research centres in eight Italian regions: Abruzzo, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Molise, Sardinia and Sicily.
The plan is developed in cooperation with the Italian Ministry for Economic Development MiSE in accordance with the European Commission National Operational Plan on Enterprises and Competitiveness 2014 2020 European Regional Development Fund ERDF. The Italian Trade Agency ITA is responsible for strategy, planning, operations and management in partnership with regional governments and local industry organisations.
The Italian Trade Agency is the government agency that supports the business development of Italian companies abroad and promotes the attraction of foreign investment in Italy.
With a wide network of overseas offices, ITA provides information, assistance, consulting, promotion, and training for Italian small and medium-sized businesses. It uses the most modern multi-channel promotion and communication tools to assert the excellence of Made in Italy in the world.