Thursday 16 May 2024 – 09:00
The technology transfer as the University’s mission to promote the economy and innovation in the area. The vehicle for this commitment is Converging Skillsthe event ofUniversity of Pisa launched a year ago and which will be held at the Benedictine Center on May 21st and 22nd.
The event highlight of the two days will be the official via Start Attractor as well as that of Start Pitchthe challenge for start-ups who will have a few minutes to present their innovative proposals. “The University continues to invest in the valorisation of knowledge to promote a sustainable ecosystem for growth – explained the rector Riccardo Zucchi – the entire university community will benefit: the students who will have more opportunities ei teachers who will have support for their relationships with businesses”.
The idea, in fact, is to provide the University with an external structure for encourage technology transfer activities. “We look at the national and international context – he added Giuseppe Iannacconevice-rector – the countries of Western Europe, and in particular Italy, continue to losing ground compared to the United States and Asia, because they innovate little and consequently have low productivity growth. But businesses alone are not enough: in this historical phase Universities must expand their role in supporting innovationand Start Attractor is the tool we are building to make collaboration with the business world more effective.”
On the occasion of the event, the partner of the University, who chose to create Start Attractor. “It’s about an international and inclusive community designed to attract capital and talent – explained the vice-rector Corrado Priami – and follows successful models already tested in other parts of the world, adapted to our local and national context. In this edition let’s get to the heart of the activities by selecting with Start Pitch the winners who will be the first to use its services“.
The latter, presented in April, is an award for the best research project and for the start-up with the best potential. In less than a month of the call opening, they were received 32 nominations coming from all over Italy on topics of Med-tech, Digital Health, Deep-Tech, Pharma-tech, Agri-tech. For the final phase, 12 were selected, each of whom, during Converging Skills, will have 5 minutes to present their idea: at the end, a jury will choose the best in the two categories: for them the prize will consist of support and networking services provided by Start Attractor for a value of 5 thousand and 7 thousand euros respectively.
