Following the success from last years, the project “Innovation for Change” kicked off today at TAG Fondazione Agnelli in Turin. The project is promoted by IdeaSquare, CERN’s dedicated facility for experimental innovation, Collège des Ingénieurs Italia (CDI) and Politecnico di Torino.
The project involves 50 young talents – 30 MBA fellows from CDI and 20 PhD from Politecnico di Torino, with scientific & engineering backgrounds, who will be working together for the next five months in Geneva and Turin, split into several groups, but with a common goal: to apply the most advanced technologies in facing global social challenges related to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Eight new startup projects will originate from this intensive work over the next months, to compete in the market with an innovative product or service matching global societal challenges and filling the needs of industrial groups or global organizations.
The teams will be supported by the partner companies, organizations and mentors who are entrepreneurs or work in big industrial groups. They will work along with the scientists of CERN and professors of Politecnico di Torino, who will help find advanced tech tools and solutions to create prototypes for these startup projects that are ready for market entry and development.
Big industrial companies and global organizations are also collaborating with the teams by selecting relevant social challenges guiding them through a joint effort to find viable innovative solutions. UniCredit, Comune di Torino, Enel, Fondazione Agnelli and Gellify are the challenges owners of 2018 edition.
At the end of the project, scheduled for the end of June 2018, the teams will share the outcome of their work with a group of companies, entrepreneurs and investors, in a public pitch and expo, attended also by the heads of the founding institutions.