As part of the ‘Role of the Individual Firm in Economic Resilience' webinar on 6-10-2020, Upidea! Acceleration program was presented by Davide Bezzecchi, Head of Industrial Research and Innovation Areas from Unindustria Reggio Emilia. In his intervention, Davide focused on the importance of the Upidea! Program to promote interaction between start-ups and corporates and its impact on the local economic context.
Reggio Emilia economic context is mainly composed by SMEs, which often maintain traditional business models focused on manufacture. Their “innovation model” remains informal and internal, thus, local SMEs are usually very distant from the Research Academy and Start-ups world. These issues translate into a loss of competitiveness in the global market, gaps on digital transformation, and lack of innovation and R&D.
Reggio Emilia territory has, therefore, created a start-up ecosystem to carry out open innovation projects. The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Legacoop Emilia Ovest, CNA, Impact Hub, Chamber of Commerce are some of the actors involved. This integrated public/private local strategy consists of supporting entrepreneurship and promoting open innovation between corporates and start-ups.
Image: The Key Stakeholders of the Start-up Ecosystem in Reggio Emilia
In particular, Unindustria Reggio Emilia (the local branch of the Italian Entrepreneurs Association Confindustria) has created Upidea!, a 6-months acceleration program to promote corporate innovation with start-ups. Start-ups from different sectors are selected, trained and mentored by using corporates’ competences and networks. The program is promoted by the Young Entrepreneurs of Confindustria Emilia-Romagna and managed by Unindustria Reggio Emilia, in collaboration with local and public incubators and with the support of the number one player in Italy in the start-up early stage acceleration, Luiss Enlabs.
The call is open to startups and business ideas from all sectors with particular attention to projects that bring innovation to the productive factory: DIGITAL MANUFACTURING, INDUSTRY 4.0, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE and SUSTAINABILITY. The program consists of several phases:
- Projects are assessed according to the degree of innovation, consistency with the territorial production system, economic sustainability, quality and completeness of the team.
- The selection is made by a jury of entrepreneurs and mentors, experts from different industrial sectors.
- The selected start-ups participate in the training course divided into thematic seminars, pitch review and mentoring by Luiss Enlabs. At the end, the teams judged to be the best enter the acceleration phase.
- Teams that have successfully passed the acceleration path participate in Investor days and have the opportunity to introduce themselves to entrepreneurs and investors.
The collaboration between corporates and start-ups represents a win-win strategy for innovating a local economic system. As a matter of fact, this strategy brings benefits for both corporates and start-ups. Corporates will have the chance to meet young talents, to learn about new technologies and main market trends, and to develop news products and services in a shorter time and less efforts. Start-ups will have the chance to meet managers and entrepreneurs, to learn how to become an entrepreneur, to have a better understanding of the markets needs and productions system, and to find funding.
An example of effective collaboration between a start-up and a corporate is represented by the global leader for production and distribution of mechanical fasteners, Vimi Fasteners, and the start-up Piqapart, a Computer Vision SaaS platform for industry and craftsmanship, selected by the Upidea! Program. Vimi launched an open innovation project to solve a problem of warehouse item identification: Piqapart proposed a solution by using a Computer Vision technology, called DART, able to quickly and precisely identify items even with no bar codes. DART helps to save up to 40% on warehouse management costs.
Image: The team of the start-up Piqapart
For further information on Upidea! Start-up Program, please get in touch with [email protected], Head of Industrial Research and Innovation Area of Unindustria Reggio Emilia, Website http://www.upidea.it/
