The construction site of the future is increasingly present. The Italgas Group and the innovative business incubator I3P have chosen and awarded five companies, candidates for the call for startups launched in March 2024 and selected from over 60 participating projects, which have proposed the best solutions and innovative technologies to define the profile of the sustainable construction site, accelerate the transition process towards a new way of building energy infrastructure and work more and more safely.
The initiative is part of Ideas 4 Italgas, the open innovation program launched by Italgas in 2020 to identify the most promising startups and SMEs to support the digital transformation of the networks and the sustainability of the Group’s activities. The final of the call, with the pitch on stage of eight finalist companies, and the award ceremony, with the awarding of awards to the five winners, took place on Wednesday 20 November during a public event hosted by I3P in Turin.
The projects selected by Italgas were, in order of awards:
- Sikuro, a Bergamo-based company, provides IoT devices and software based on artificial intelligence to improve safety at work, monitoring high-risk construction sites and industrial environments in real time, preventing accidents and optimizing safety management.
- Pix4D is a Swiss company that offers advanced photogrammetry solutions for infrastructure and construction site monitoring, enabling companies to obtain high-precision 3D models to improve the management and maintenance of their assets.
- Enivibes, a Milan-based company, develops IoT technologies for the continuous monitoring of network infrastructures. It uses sensors to detect leaks and anomalies in pipelines in real time, optimizing maintenance and reducing the cost and environmental impacts of monitoring activities.
- Sensoworks, a Rome-based company, develops an AI-based predictive monitoring platform for critical infrastructures such as bridges and viaducts, detecting anomalies in real time to prevent failures and improve maintenance operations.
- Wsense is a Roman startup specializing in subsea technologies. It develops IoT and communication systems for environmental monitoring and underwater surveillance, optimizing the management of marine data and underwater assets of companies.
The other three finalists who played in the final phase of the competition also attracted interest:
- Hypermeteo, based in Rome, develops ultra-localized weather forecasting solutions based on big data and artificial intelligence, supporting companies in the management of their assets and in the prediction of adverse weather events.
- TimelapseLab, based in Mantua, offers an automated continuous monitoring system for construction sites and large infrastructure projects, improving not only visual documentation, but also safety, progress control and analysis of work productivity.
- Wescan, based in Bergamo, offers advanced solutions for the continuous monitoring of critical infrastructures with sensors and IoT systems, providing real-time data to improve safety, maintenance and operational efficiency, reducing risks and intervention times.
The winning projects will now be able to receive the opportunity to develop a Proof-of-Concept with Italgas, collaborating directly with the group to test their technological proposal in the field. The teams chosen by the call will also have free access not only to Italgas’ mentorship and laboratories, to learn how to concretely integrate innovative projects within the Group’s already consolidated processes, but also to a six-month incubation course in I3P, to benefit from its strategic consultancy and entrepreneurial training.
Peter Durante, Chief People, Innovation & Transformation Officer of Italgas, commented: “Innovation is the extraordinary engine that is driving the evolution of our Group to become a Network Tech Company. In these years of great transformations, we have experienced first-hand the importance of an open innovation approach that allows access to unlimited technological cutting-edge and reduces implementation times within organizations. Working with such innovative companies offers a double and mutual advantage: we grow together and create value for the territory”.
Leonardo Ambrosi, Group Innovation Officer of Italgas, said: “Since the first call in 2020, we have integrated almost twenty technologies developed by selected startups, many of which have contributed to improving our daily operations, increasing their efficiency and sustainability. Symptomatic numbers of our idea of open innovation: a valuable opportunity to explore new perspectives and evolve our ability to do business in a sustainable way”.
Giuseppe Scellato, President of I3P, added: “The open innovation initiative that we have conceived and implemented together with the Italgas Group has come to fruition in the best possible way. The opportunity for our business incubator to collaborate with a large corporate entity such as Italgas has created value for all the players involved, from startups that have been able to propose their innovative technological solutions to a sector leader able to test them in the field, to third-party companies and students interested in the growth opportunities offered by the challenges of sustainability, a transversal field in many sectors on which it is not only possible, but also desirable, to build new paradigms and new working methods, facilitated by the digitization process”.
(Source: I3P press release)
