The new H4E, the startup incubator of the Italian Institute of Technology, has been inaugurated in Genoa

An area of ​​about 1500 square meters covering the entire 11th floor of Tower B of the Erzelli Science Parkdivided between modular offices, meeting rooms, laboratories and a common space, researchers, entrepreneurs and startuppers will be able to collaborate and share ideas: this, in a nutshell, is the new H4E, the incubator of the Italian Institute of Technology, inaugurated today in Genoa.

H4E (the acronym stands for Hub for Entrepreneurship), in addition to being the place where startups born within IIT will be able to take their first steps on the market, it aims to be a structure capable of support the growth and development of ideas businesses born from the Ligurian research sector.

Two laboratories and a supercomputer

As explained, i laboratories which the companies hosted within the incubator will be able to use will be:

• a laboratory of Robotics, Mechatronics, Electronics and Interactionsdesigned for startups that aim to develop mechatronic products, medical devices or wearable devices, also with the creation of prototypes, tests and verification and validation of the devices;

• a laboratory of Material sciencesdesigned for startups that operate in the field of innovative materials but also that deal with the creation of technologies for the production of alternative energy, new types of batteries, fuel cells, surgical prostheses, with a professional 3D printer and an inkjet one for conductive circuits.

Not only that: the incubator will be connected by fast lines to supercomputer Franklin4e, a section of IIT’s High Performance Computer capable of performing 1.5 million billion calculations per second which will be made available to companies based in H4E. The supercalculation allowed by HPC could be useful for a large number of applications: from the elaboration of weather forecasts to diagnostic imaging, from land monitoring to genetic studies, in the area of ​​bioinformatics or simulations of molecular dynamics and artificial vision, up to the creation of digital twins in the industrial field.

Meanwhile, one has also been launched international selection procedure to find a professional with a background in the fields of research and entrepreneurship who can join the IIT technology transfer team to take care of the development of the H4E incubator.

@capoema