I recently took part to the meeting with the Italian winners of the Phase1 of the SME Innovation Instrument, that I organized together with APRE. We were hosted by the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR), and the event was organized in cooperation with Enterprise Europe Network.
We presented three cases of Phase2 which could be exemplary of alternative instances of innovation:
1. Datawizard is a company in the digital sector whose ambition in the future might be to ring the bell at NASDAQ.
2. Soltigua is a third generation family firm. The company started in the construction industry, and The SME Instrument is now giving them the opportunity to focus on a diversification strategy in the energy sector.
3. Survey Lab is a a spin-off from the University of Rome. Thanks to the SME Instrument this team is moving beyond its academic mindset, and it is actually exploring new scalable business models.
These are three paths to market for EU research and technology to keep in mind. They all have different needs and ambitions. Very interesting to see them side by side.
Managers and entrepreneurs are good teachers for us. The message they gave us is clear in my mind: «Stay open to many forms of Open Innovation».