Posts Tagged Startup
We’ve Been Incubated!
Ok, it’s a bad expression which can give cause for never ending witty remarks, but for the three of us, me, Luca and Guido, recently awarded at the Startcup 2006, the regional contest for startup creation, the meaning is pretty clear: other than the cash prize by the Chamber of Commerce of Como, our real target was the incubation! 🙂
We’re now hosted (incubated!) in the startup accelerator of the Polo Regionale di Como of the Politecnico di Milano.
We finally have an office, at the third floor of the building in Piazzale Gerbetto, where we can continue working on the project we started powered only by enthusiasm and hard work, aiming since the beginning to a result of excellence.
The office is fully operative by now from a technical point of view, while we still have a lot to do for what concerns furnishings, especially after we’ve seen how the girls of Ciren and Urbano Creativo, neo-incubated at the second floor, set up their office.
We really need a female touch for that! 
Professor Negrini, who gave us the award at the Startcup, told us this was his office before he moved to the Politecnico’s building in Via Anzani. Really a privilege considering how much I think highly of him.
During the introductory meeting of the new startups he used a very motivating expression: “Now you’re entrepreneurs!” he told us.
Personally I do rely a lot on the network of competences that can be established among the ten startups now incubated in Como and it’s actually a pleasure being able to discuss and relate with other companies operating in the same sector. From these relations new interesting opportunities can be generated.
After the pizza-dinner with Luca and Guido to celebrate our first meeting in the office, as you can see in the pic, and the usual tea break at 17 ò clock with MetalC’s staff at the third floor, we can say that being incubated is not a bad thing at all! 😛
We Won!!!
I don’t know if it has been for the logo made by Luca, the strong points of the project, the quality of the documentation we submitted, the presentation held with Guido at the Chamber of Commerce of Como last week or even the elegant suit tailored for that special occasion by the Sartoria Orefice ;), or most probably a combination of all these elements, but the end results is that we won the Special Award of the CCIAA Como at the StartCup 2006. 😀
We’re working on something not really new, something others already did by using the latest mobile technologies applied to the sector of cultural goods, but maybe the difference is that we aim our idea towards excellence and the commission got it and decided to choose us, although they told us the other projects were very interesting.
Yesterday in Milan professor Negrini gave us the award during the exciting ceremony of the StartCup finals.
The first picture captured that moment with me and Luca on the stage. The emotion was great, the same emotion that passed through the hands of the photographer.
The second one depicts the team, almost complete since Guido was missing, with professor Negrini and Paolo and Samantha of Opla S.r.l., our main collaborators. The third one shows all the winner groups on the stage of the main hall of the Università degli Studi.
After the ceremony we had a nice walk around the Duomo of Milan thanks to an exceptionally good weather for the season and I took a pic of the Madunina on top of it.
The cash award will help us to quickly get to the prototipation phase of the project, motivate a team that relied upon its own forces until now, and most importantly it opens the perspective to be incubated as a startup in the offices of the Polo Regionale of Como. This if what we actually were looking for, good job i-boys!
Here the article about the incubation published by the local daily newspaper La Provincia.
The 16 Slides at the Chamber of Commerce
On last friday me and Guido, one of the members of the team I assembled since the beginning of the year to work on a technologic innovation project, held a 16 slides presentation at the Chamber of Commerce of Como.
We have been invited to present the project to compete for one of the special prizes of the StartCup 2006, the annual competition organized by the seven universities in Milan aimed to promote the creation of startup companies.
In front of a commission composed by Paolo de Santis, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Como, Pierluigi della Vigna and Roberto Negrini, two of the best professors I had when I was attending university, as well as Giorgio Corradi, manager for the incubator at the Polo Regionale of Como, we began the presentation with beating hearts.
We felt secure about the strong points of the project, since we’ve been seriously working on it since the beginning of the year, and we did see it slowly evolving on the right path, but you never know what can happen on such occasions, especially considering it was our first presentation outside the working group.
The presentation went well and the commission seemed positively impressed by the project. They asked us a lot of questions and we well exceeded the time we initially had.
There are five candidates in total for this special prize and on wednesday 25th in the main hall of the Università degli Studi di Milano they’ll announce the winners.
We’ll be there with fingers crossed…
IComo: 8th Matching about Technologic Innovation
Last week I attended the 8th matching about technologic innovation organized by the Centro Volta, the monthly event promoted by the IComo initiative and aimed to help local small and medium enterprises to start innovation projects.
The presentations this time ranged from nanomaterials applied to textile fibers in order to grant them new properties such as resistance to bacteria, to the latest developments in liquid crystals production, to advanced imaging systems used in robotics, to the selection and implementation of a natural element with a unique DNA to track a product along the supply chain and to guarantee its originality.
During the presentation by Pierangelo Metrangolo about liquid crystals, he recalled that right there in Villa Olmo, in the big hall below the one we were seating in, modern chemistry was born thanks to Heisenberg, Fermi and other scientists during a big congress held in 1927.
These matchings are always interesting and many of the speakers come from high level italian laboratories. In fact IComo staff aims to stimulate ideas of the local entrepreneurs and they’re right, especially when the presentations are so brilliant. The number of the attendees is also increasing, a good sign of the information campaign they’re making to promote the meetings.
I’ll be at Smau on October 5th, the ICT exhibition in Milan that from this year it’s reserved to professionals only.
There’s also the interesting e-Academy structure and I’ll attend a couple of the numerous seminars.
My Vespa will bring me to Milan tomorrow for the exhibition, then she’ll rest for a couple of days at my friend Marco’s “Motorantola” workshop for a complete check up, so much needed after the long journey around Italy. 🙂
IComo: Patents and Intellectual Property Rights
Posted by Albegor in Como, Net-Tailor, Software on May 14, 2006
Patents and intellectual property rights were the subject matter of the seminar organized by the research center Centro Volta related to the IComo: la fabbrica delle idee initiative, a project aimed to promote technology innovation among the local small and medium enterprises.
The meeting took place in Villa Olmo, the place chosen for the current exhibition devoted to Magritte, and consisted of a series of presentations by company managers and professional consultants involved in the delicate matter of tutelating intellectual property rights and exploiting the benefits and the added value of patents.
The current tendency is to consider a patent not only as a good tool of legal protection for a company’s idea or processing method, but also as an internal asset to make business with, a way of thinking americans already well know and effectively use. Testimonials of this were the managers of big companies such as ABB and Fiat with its CRF (Fiat Research Center).
From the conference clearly emerged that evaluating the convenience and opportunity of registering a patent is a delicate matter and requires the support of experts needed to perform a series of studies and researches in order to be able to produce a strong patent, which may be used as an effective protection tool especially for the local small enterprises constantly facing the counterfeiting phenomenon of a global market.
The innovation technology project I’m currently involved in, under the direct coordination of the Centro Volta, is evaluating these issues and after this seminar I’m even more convinced in the way of registering a patent to tutelate the work we’re doing and then make business with, if possible.
Registering a patent instead of maintaining an industrial secret inside a company has both advantages and disadvantages. With a patent your idea becomes public, but you tutelate yourself for the number of years you’re going to do business with. On the opposite think about the Coca-Cola formula for example. They say they didn’t patent it, so it still remains an industrial secret.
Software is an even more delicate matter if inserted in the patent issue, but that was not discussed in the meeting. The EU Commission is still debating about software patents and since they’re considered a big obstacle to innovation, especially by small developers, I suggest you to read about the NoSoftwarePatents campaign.
The conference ended with a funny and smart presentation by a lawyer who gave the audience some significant examples of the way of working in our country compared to the US. They seem to be different planets in this particular matter, not only by the numbers involved. 😉
Mobile Force & Office Forum 2006
On april 4th I attended the spring edition of the Wireless forums, a mix of business meetings and conferences organized by the Wireless magazine at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Milan.
I followed most of the presentations of the section Mobile Force & Office Forum since automating a mobile workforce is related to one of my software projects. As a whole, the presentations were interesting and the moderator, Paolo Conti, was a brilliant guy, but the public was not as numerous as the one attending the Wlan Business Forum, a parallel series of conferences focused on broadband, Wi-Fi and Wi-Max technologies.
In particular I found interesting the Psion Teklogix Mobile Show, actually one hour of live show with funny performances by the Psion Teklogix’s technical staff showing the latest barcode and RFID technologies while tracking a shipment from the order to the delivery destination. The scenography they set up was defenitely mobile! 😉
Also interesting was the interview with Funambol’s CEO: he spoke about the company’s history, how they found financial support in the US and he talked about the SyncML opensource software.
In the exhibition area I had the pleasure to talk with the staff of Softwork since I’m currently exploring RFID technology applied to mobile devices.
Also I had the chance to get my hands on the new Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone at the Dangaard’s booth, the Qtek 8500, alias HTC Star Trek… very nice design! 🙂
IComo: The Factory of Ideas
Last thursday, I attended the IComo: La Fabbrica delle Idee (the factory of ideas) in Villa Olmo, an event organized by the Centro Volta and the Chamber of Commerce of Como and presented as a matching point for technology innovation aimed at local small and medium companies willing to innovate by exploiting new ideas to be able to remain competitive on the market.
The subjects of the presentations ranged from robotics and automation to new manufacturing techniques such as MIM (Metal Injection Moulding), but included also a presentation about RFID technology by a HP manager, as well as a brief overview of the future of information technology by Intel which included mobile devices.
My collaboration with the Centro Volta is already generating positive results. We’re starting a project committed by a small artigianal enterprise who was searching for a partner to take care of the development of their innovative idea from both the hardware and software sides.
It looks very stimulating, but at the same time we recently completed the due diligence study for the project I submitted some months ago and it appears we’ve found the right contacts to make it real, something that appeared difficult to me at first.
Looks like I’m building a busy schedule for the next months, but that’s what I wanted when I first got in touch with the staff of the Centro Volta, so I can’t complain at all! 😉
Welcome to Miami, Bienvenido a Miami
This song by Will Smith did accompany me during the days I was getting ready for my first trip to the US, since the destination was Miami, that magical city in the south beaches of Florida. 🙂
I spent the whole last week there since I was invited to attend the Handango Partner Summit 2005, which took place from june 22 to 24 in the beautiful Sheraton Bal Harbour Beach Resort located in the Bal Harbour zone of Miami Beach.
It was a three days long event of presentations and meeting sessions with software developers, sponsors and the Handango staff, who surprised me for his kindness and enthusiasm for their job. I was honored just to have been invited there since there were less than 200 developers selected from the 10.000 ones who chose Handango to sell their software all over the world, and also I got the confirmation that I was the only italian coming from Italy. 🙂
So it has been an important event for my business, Handango staff appreciate what I’m doing as a developer and, as the theme of this year goes, they’re inviting me to unleash my potential. It takes time, especially if you’re doing it in Italy, but they won’t be disappointed.
To sum up it has been the perfect combination of business and pleasure, a sort of reward for who takes this job with passion, since after the Summit me and Christian, a friend who followed me in this adventure, had a great time on the sands of Miami Beach, in the wonderful pool of the Sheraton and in the locals of this huge city. 🙂
BroadBandWeek Event in Milan and European Contests Submission
Last week the BroadBandWeek event took place in Milan, a series of seminars and presentations in week from the 6th to the 11th in different places of the city about the new opportunities offered not only by the availability of broadband Internet connections but also by mobile devices, the two hot topics of the italian ICT business.
On thursday I’ve been able to attend the BroadBand Match Day in which they talked about the business opportunities for young people willing to turn into reality their technology-related innovative ideas. The speakers were very good and experienced, and although the number of attendees was pretty low, it surprised me to see more wannabe female entrepreneurs than male. 🙂
The Match Day took place near the Polytechnic of Milan, while on friday the event moved to the Mediateca Santa Teresa with the name Multimedia Creativity Day. They presented two european contests for young talents, the eContent Award Italy, which is selecting the best italian projects to candidate them to the World Summit Award, for which I already submitted an entry, and the Top Talent Award 2005.
It was a bit sad when Cesare Massarenti spoke about Italy and told that compared to other european countries there are only a few italians participating at these contests since “the school system doesn’t form students at these levels”. Although I don’t like generalizations at all, that’s a valid assertion in many cases, and I wonder if the so called Business Angels do really exist in Italy or it’s just another cool word as long as start-ups, spin-offs and so on, to make a speech appear more international and hide the fact we’re always lagging behind the other european countries for what concern research and content production, especially high level entertainment software.
Enough ranting for now, the next week in the US is going to be an exciting one… 😉