Last week, in an interview by Andrea Rinaldi of Corriere della Sera Torino, the Francesco Profumo, Compagnia di San Paolo Presidents, shared his visions for the future of our city and renewed the commitment of the foundation he leads in supporting technological innovation in Turin. "The Compagnia di San Paolo," Profumo recalled, "has invested first in processes and then in projects for innovation, choices that have made it possible to build over the years an innovation ecosystem envied by many and to fund more than 200 startups from 2020 to today".

Italy, the fourth largest economy in Europe, occupies the fourteenth place in the ranking of European startups. As we have already seen in an analysis we presented back in autumn, our country is about 6/7 years behind the ecosystem of France, England, Germany, Sweden and other European nations that are ahead of us. "The year 2021 has been encouraging for Italian startups: venture capital investments have broken through the symbolic billion euro wall and rounds such as the 118 million euros in Turin-based NewCleo nuclear business and the Nasdaq debut of biotech Genenta stand out", Profumo added.

In recent years, Compagnia di San Paolo has launched several calls to support startups and businesses in the area, one of which in support of artificial intelligence applications, now in its second edition that will be extended to all of Italy. In Turin, the city designated for the I3A - Italian Institute for Artificial Intelligence for which the final green light from the government is awaited in recent weeks, the Foundation has enhanced innovations in the field of machine learning focused on the protection of sustainable development, common goods, and the people of the territories. To Corriere, Profumo commented on the success of the first edition: "Capitalizing on the results achieved with the path launched in 2020, in December 2021 we launched a second call, with 4 million endowment, one more than the previous one. It is a call characterized by an anthropocentric approach, on the themes of education and training, health and well-being, environment and green transition and risk protection and insurance. The partnerships that will participate will be led by the universities".

Another success of the foundation, in collaboration with Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondazione CRT and Techstars, is the acceleration program for startups involved in smart mobility, whose new edition extended to the smart cities theme has just begun at OGR Tech. The participation of 12 young companies from all over Europe contributes to give further impetus to Turin to recover positions in the ranking of European innovative ecosystems: "The results of the first two editions are interesting: 23 startups graduated from 3 continents, 19 proof of concept commissioned by Italian players, more than 20 million euros raised by startups in the post-acceleration phase, 2 settled in Turin, one accompanied in the activation of the business branch of an Italian company. We decided to broaden the focus of the program, which became Torino Cities of the Future, focusing on solutions to make tomorrow's cities more sustainable and inclusive. The class kicked off last Monday, hosting 12 companies from 8 countries. This is the year of maturation and the results are very interesting. We plan to continue the relationship with Techstars for another three years, because the time to consolidate the tech ecosystem is 5-6 years".

On the other hand, Turin, in Italy, has already been a protagonist for several years in the accelerator sector. In addition to the incubator of the University of Turin 2i3T and that of the Politecnico di Torino I3P, the the best public incubator in the world in the period 2019-2020 which will contribute for the next 7 years to the activities of the nascent ESA Bic Turin of the European Space Agency, Magic Spectrum is also coming, a three-year acceleration program of Digital Magics on IoT and 5G applied to Industry 4.0, mobility, agriculture and health. And then many public-private partnership initiatives, most recently the CTE NEXT House of Emerging Technologies.

And in order for the Torino ecosystem to continue to grow, it is necessary to enhance and stimulate entrepreneurial talent in the field of innovation and attract new talent to our territory in order to "cultivate a new generation of entrepreneurs capable of accelerating the path from idea to impact". For this reason, the Compagnia di San Paolo is collaborating with Exor Seeds, Talent Garden, la Compagnia di San Paolo collabora con Exor Seeds, Talent Garden, Fondazione CRT and OGR to launch the first edition of the venture building program Vento, which takes over the activities of the SEI School of Entrepreneurship & Innovation. In this regard, Profumo commented: "Vento is a venture building program that in each edition will help 30 young aspiring entrepreneurs to create innovative startups. With a four-month full-time program, the participants, who will be paid, will work to bring to market solutions that respond to challenges launched by large companies that support the initiative. We will support these startups by providing a total sum, up to 250,000 euros, destined for the realization of proof of concept and prototypes, thus helping nascent entrepreneurial projects to take their first steps."