Tomorrow, June 15, the “Tour of the Thousand” initiative by Telecom Italia and PNICube is coming to Campania to support the talents of Italian innovation and promote the creation of start-ups. In 2011, it has been seeking a thousand highly innovative projects promoted by young university students and aspiring entrepreneurs throughout Italy.
The meeting will be held at 5:30 PM at the SS Marcellino and Festo Complex, and will be presented by Riccardo Luna, founder of Wired Italia, and Gianluca Dettori, founder of dPixel, with the participation of Marco Patuano, Telecom Italia CEO, Manuela Arata, Director of the CNR Office for Promotion and Collaboration Developments, Andrea Bachrach, President of the Naples Young Entrepreneurs Group, Virman Cusenza, Director of the daily Il Mattino, Lucia Annunziata, Alex Giordano, founder of Ninja Marketing, Alessandro Buttà of StartCup Campania, Giorgio Ventre, President of the CRIAI, Antonio Capaldo, President of Feudi di San Gregorio, Riccardo Realfonso, Full Professor of the University of Sannio, and a video intervention by Erri De Luca.
The Tour of the Thousand - Working Capital, the project launched by Telecom Italia in 2009 with aim of supporting youth enterprise based on the web and new technologies; the project features over 10,000 aspiring entrepreneurs with over 1,000 proposed projects, 13 start-ups supported, 30 research projects funded and 36 projects in the pre-incubation stage. The 2011 special edition, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Italian unification, will travel throughout the country to discover the new heroes who, armed with their business ideas, will challenge one another over various stages up to the final win to be celebrated in Turin. The Telecom Italia partners in this special edition of Working Capital include PNICube –National Innovation Prize, the Comitato Italia 150– Esperienza Italia, Piedmont Region, Wired and Quantica.
The Working Capital–National Innovation Prize project involves four business areas: Internet Web and ICT, the Green sector (environmentally sustainable technologies), Bio & Nano (bio-lifecare and nanotechnologies) and Social Innovation (initiatives to promote social innovation); on the basis of the state of advancement of the projects proposed, there are two specific paths: the Grant area to provide support with research contract to projects by students, researchers and inventors not yet ready for the world of business, and the Seed area, aimed at university entrepreneurs, start-ups and spin-offs already created or being created.
The proposals will be accepted up to early July on the website www.workingcapital.telecomitalia.it where you only need register and follow the instructions to participate in the business competition free of charge.
The Tour of the Thousand has stopped in Mille Turin and Palermo, and after Naples will go to Florence, Trieste and Milan, and end back in Turin.
Naples, 14 June 2011
