Venice on the hunt for innovators to study climate change (and the flight of young people)
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Venice is a living laboratory for innovation, an accelerator for startups that was also created to combat climate change in a more difficult and at risk city. “Let’s say that those who survive here have more chances of being a true innovator”, jokes Carlo Bagnoli, economist, visionary and scientific director of VeniSIA which is the Venice Sustainability Innovation Accelerator. Venice, he explains, is already at the forefront. “It is not just high water, it is a land of five square kilometers in which just under 50 thousand people live. What we want – he observes – is also to counter the flight of young people from cities by bringing new ideas ».
It is not the first time in Italy that we have tried to attract talents and startups but the project was born with an extra ambition. «One thing that interests Venice interests the world – try to explain to Sole 24 Ore the professor of business economics at the Cà Foscari University -. When I proposed my idea to Satya Nadella (CEO of Microsoft, ed) I realized that in order to bring these projects to land, it is necessary to include the impact on the territory in the equation, but above all to have partners ».
VeniSia is not a new accelerator. It is supported by Eni, through Joule, its Business School, by Enel, by Atlantia, Cisco and Snam and by De ‘Longhi Group and Goppion Caffè as Tech Partner. Last year 4 thousand applications arrived from all over the world (Italy, Canada, United States, Israel, Kenya, Germany, Spain, United Kingdom, Netherlands and Denmark), last week thirty landed in Venice for the final. At the end of the process, each partner will adopt a startup that will be hosted in Venice, thus starting a path of open innovation.
Among the startups selected is the American Jupiter, who has created a platform that provides data and analysis services to better predict and manage the risks associated with rising sea levels, intensifying storms and increasing temperatures caused by medium and long-term climate change. German startup Beworm has developed a recycling process that breaks down plastic waste into valuable raw materials. The process uses bacteria to attack polyethylene, the most widely used plastic material in the world. The enzymes produced by these bacteria can break down plastics into basic chemicals useful for the production of new (bio) plastics or other petrochemicals.
Many of these ideas would be perfect for Venice, like that of Hydronet, a company from Boston (USA) that works on the underwater internet with utrasonic, acoustic and optical technologies. Or the system of buoys that intercept the plastic in the canals and dispose of it. Many of these startups have been trying to bring their projects to the ground for years. Only for the finalists, chosen at the beginning of 2023, there is a prize of 20 thousand euros. Which isn’t much but it’s a start.
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