At the first event of the year with StartupItalia Open Summit, the judges named the winner the startup that reduces the ecological footprint of urban centers thanks to data analysis. The story of the whole day from SIOS24 Sardinia
WiData is the Sardinian startup of the year! The SIOS24 Sardinia judges, after having attended the pitches of the 10 startups selected in the StartupItalia and Innois call, declared the winner.
WiData is an innovative technology startup, specialized in the development of monitoring solutions for smart cities. Its high-precision sensors and a very intuitive dashboard guide the monitoring of people flows, environmental weather parameters and crowding. Using the Internet of Things, WiData exploits technologies that range across different application domains, from understanding and digitizing people’s movements anonymously, to the identification of urban heat islands through temperature sensors.
WiData aims to develop solutions that reduce the ecological footprint of cities and works in the field of synthetic data that only improves urban analysis and simulation, but also provides a solid basis for training other artificial intelligence models.
“SIOS24 Sardinia–Frontier Intelligences” – with over 900 participants and 3500 spectators connected at the same time – it was the first stage of StartupItalia’s journey dedicated to all the companies committed to imagining and building the future in our country. Widata is one of the 42 companies selected for the call organized in collaboration with Innoisborn to promote the area as an innovation hub. On the podium too Active Label (monitoring of perishable products via Cloud) e Nuraxi (Artificial Intelligence solutions for longevity).
WiData’s victory belongs to the entire Sardinian innovation ecosystem
«Behind our victory there is the push of the entire Sardinian ecosystem which is growing a lot in recent years – he comments Enrico Ferrara, COO of Widata. Participating in SIOS24 Sardinia gave us the opportunity to compare ourselves with many other valuable startups that make this Region special. Before winning the Sardinian Startup of the Year award, we participated in many calls, often you lose, sometimes you win, therefore I suggest all startups participate in all available opportunities because these are very precious moments of growth.”
The path of StartupItalia Open Summit 2024 (SIOS24) has started again in this edition (the fifth) from the frame of the multifunctional center Sa Manufacturing of Cagliari, where moments of discussion and exchange of ideas between entrepreneurs alternated with speeches by exceptional guests: Alessandra Todde, President of the Sardinia Region; Antonello CabrasVice President BPER; Red Mario, philosopher and manager; Andrea D’OnofrioMarketing Lead for Data & AI Microsoft Western Europe; Elisa Zscopio Marsala, Head of Education Ecosystem and global value programs of Intesa Sanpaolo; Sandro Cappaiauthor and stand-up comedian.
Inside the Sa Manifattura multifunctional center in Cagliari, the paper was presented with the new research on the evolution of entrepreneurship on the island, home to the new Frontech accelerator dedicated to frontier technologies and characterized by a positive balance of 1,563 companies among closures and new openings in 2023 (a higher rate than regions such as Emilia Romagna and Piedmont).
Download the opinion on the Sardinian ecosystem
With Frontech the wind of the future is blowing in Sardinia
The wind of the future is blowing in Sardinia, which must be welcomed by exploiting all its energy: a vibrant cultural identity, a historic entrepreneurial vocation and a propensity for innovation that create fertile ground for the startup ecosystem. Sardinia is now focusing its energies on the transformations of the Internet, with Web3 and the evolution of artificial intelligence, in particular on generative AI. Furthermore, 2024 will go down in the history of the regional innovation ecosystem for the birth of Frontech, the acceleration program for frontier technologies (Web 3.0, metaverse and Generative AI), promoted by the CDP National Network and aimed at early state startups B2B.
With an initial endowment of 7 million euros (of which 5.6 allocated by the Accelerator Fund of CDP Venture Capital and the remainder by the co-investors GELLIFY and Cariplo Factory) Frontech will select 10 startups per year for the next three years, with an initial investment of 120 thousand euros, to develop and strengthen its business proposition.
Research on the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Sardinia
The continuous synergy work between companies, institutions and universities in the Region is showing its fruits in the number of companies active in Sardinia. At the end of 2023 there were 144,389 active companies, with 7,893 new registrations and a positive balance of 1,563 companies, higher than other regions such as Emilia Romagna and Piedmont. Positive data also on business mortality, 4.4%, lower than the Italian average of 5.3%. Finally, Infocamere’s analysis shows that the overall development rate of Sardinian companies, equal to 1.1%, is higher than the Italian average of 0.8%.
