The I3P Startup Academy, the free training course for aspiring innovative entrepreneurs created by I3P, is about to return in its third edition, with five appointments scheduled from March to May 2025.

Where do you start to turn an idea into a successful business? What steps do you need to follow to found an innovative startup? How do you compose a team with which to face the challenge of a technology-based business project? These are some of the main questions that all those who are entering the world of innovative startups for the first time ask themselves, and which will be answered by I3P experts during the Academy meetings, aimed at offering a starting point and the fundamental knowledge to build an innovative entrepreneurial project.

As with previous editions, held in 2023 and 2024, the I3P Startup Academy 2025 training course is funded and implemented as part of the activities of the NODES (Digital and Sustainable North West) Ecosystem and its Spoke 1, dedicated to Aerospace and Sustainable Mobility, of which the I3P incubator is one of the main partners.

Online applications to participate in the Academy are already open and will close on Wednesday 19 February 2025, with an initial pre-selection based on compliance with the requirements for participation and a second cognitive step before the final selection. The route has a maximum of 35 places available in total.

Let’s start the enterprise

The goal of I3P’s initiative is to support aspiring startuppers in their earliest phase, helping them to give concrete shape to an innovative idea, get to know other profiles with whom they can compose a team with complementary skills and start the customer discovery process, with a focus on the techniques of validating the business project and examining the market to which it could potentially be addressed.

The course will be divided into 5 face-to-face lessons and will follow an interactive mode: each lesson will be based on theoretical preparation pills, business games and moments of discussion with scale-up founders and some of the main venture capitalists who will tell in a practical way how an entrepreneurial success story is born. Expert mentors and startups already active will also participate, in particular from the aerospace and sustainable mobility sectors supported by Spoke 1 of the NODES Ecosystem.

As in previous editions, the incubator intends to once again create a dynamic and exciting climate, which favors the interaction of participants, the learning of the basic concepts of the lean startup approach and the opportunity to meet new possible co-founders for the innovative companies of tomorrow.

The recipients of the initiative

The I3P Startup Academy 2025 course is aimed at people under the age of 35, domiciled in Piedmont and with at least a three-year degree. Both already formed teams that have a first idea for a future innovative company can participate, as well as individuals who do not yet have a specific project, but who would like to get involved by joining existing groups or creating new ones.

One of the peculiar purposes of the course, in fact, is to put people with different skills in contact, to integrate existing working groups or alternatively to create new trainings. To succeed in this intent, participants must really want to dialogue and discuss – both with tutors and mentors, as well as with each other – and are therefore willing to share their ideas and skills with other aspiring startuppers.

The Academy’s initiative also aims to offer equal opportunities for meeting, training and consulting to all those interested in embarking on a path of creating a startup, with particular attention to female entrepreneurship and the support of teams made up of women founders, to encourage their increase in the world of innovation still characterized by a preponderant male presence. Aspiring entrepreneurs, the I3P incubator is looking forward to getting to know you and accompanying your innovative ideas towards success!

The program of the route

The I3P Startup Academy lessons will take place on Saturday mornings, from 09:00 to 13:00, on five dates already set: 8 March, 15 March, 29 March, 12 April, 10 May 2025. All meetings will be held exclusively in presence, in alternating locations such as the I3P headquarters and the spaces of two partner institutions of the initiative: Talent Garden Fondazione Agnelli, the Turin campus of the European Talent Garden network, and OGR Tech, the innovation and technology hub of OGR Torino. Participation in the Academy is entirely free.

During the application phase, interested parties are asked to be willing to follow the entire path with constancy and dedication, coming to build an entrepreneurial project to be presented at the final meeting, so as to be able to make the most of the cycle of lessons and make the most of the opportunity it offers. Between one lesson and another, participants will also be asked to carry out activities aimed at testing and validating their business idea. This means that in the weeks of the Academy, aspiring startuppers will have to invest their time to apply the concepts, notions and ideas acquired during the course appointments to their nascent entrepreneurial project.

To apply to participate in the new edition of I3P Startup Academy, you must fill out the appropriate online form by Wednesday 19 February 2025 at the latest, but it is good to do it as soon as possible because the second evaluation step must be completed within the days immediately following. Successful applications will be confirmed between the end of February and the beginning of March, in time for the first lesson on Saturday 8 March.

For more information on the initiative and on the details of the program, you can write to the dedicated e-mail address academy@i3p.it

(Source: I3P press release)