Good practice:

C_LAB VENETO -CONTAMINATION LAB

The Veneto Contamination Lab is a 6-month training course for students and recent graduates from all disciplines. The goal is to work together to solve the problems and challenges posed by enterprises, students but also by recent graduates, graduate students and PhDs with heterogeneous and multidisciplinary backgrounds will undertake a 6-month extracurricular training course, divided into groups of at least 4 people and focusing on their work on an innovation challenge proposed by an enterprise. In a first phase they will receive a specific 42-hour training on the topics of “Business development and innovation", before starting the project work, to learn the basics of project management for innovation, business modeling, design thinking, lean methodology and in general the soft necessary skills. Afterwards each group will work on a challenge proposed by the company, guided by the coaches in this path and under the coordination of the entrepreneur. The co-working path includes teams of at least 4 people who will be assigned companies that wish to get involved and draw on this pool of talent. This is an important opportunity to develop a theme of corporate interest with young resources within a structured and guided path.

The activation of each team (1 team of 4 people = 1 project proposed by the enterprise) foresees a contribution of 12.000 € by enterprises to cover the costs of training, coaching, fees for co-working spaces and equipment, prizes for the winning teams etc. The public body can cover activation costs.

In 2018/9 over 100 students and graduates were trained and developed projects proposed by enterprises. A team in 2018 developed new IP video entryphone concept able to manage visitor check-ins remotely (hospitality sector). The 2nd ranked team 2018 developed a dashboard that uses the anger emotion to improve interaction man-robot (with Konica Minolta); in 2019 “COFFEEBIKE” in collaboration with the Bike.it identified the optimal sizing of an ebike for urban commuting: home-office/school transfer

A close synergy must be established between the academic world and enterprises. The role of the public entity in this case can be decisive for the start-up phase of the program, covering part of the activation costs

The transferring potential is high considering the approach that foresees the close synergy between the research organizations of the territory and the enterprises. By the means of annual calls students and graduates who want to become "entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs of themselves" can candidate in order to find quick and innovative solutions, and to collaborate in achieving their goals. Universities mobilize researchers and students, enterprises can obtain research results on projects low costs. The contamination lab is a container in which there are different activities such as: Classroom training with coaches and experts from different sectors; Workshops and Focus Groups with researchers, innovators and enterprises on emerging technologies and innovative services; Meetings with enterprises, startups and successful innovators who have created creative solutions based on multi-disciplinarity; Events and courses to respond to specific training needs; Teamwork.