After the announcement of CTE Next - House of Emerging Technologies and the hub I3A Italian Institute of Artificial IntelligenceTurin has been awarded by the European Union as the headquarters for social innovation projects at the service of the third sector. The project will aim to support startups in their birth and growth, especially in the most critical phases: idea development, design and start-up, with a focus on companies operating in the third sector and social economy.
The new center will have its operational base in Via Cigna, at theOpen Incet, and will rely on a public-private synergy between local companies and local government, universities and research centers with the common goal of initiating entrepreneurship in non-profit organizations, cooperatives, associations and all entities belonging to the Third Sector.
The activities will be financed by the EaSI (Employment and Social Innovation) program of the EU, a European call for proposals that the Municipality was able to win thanks to the help of over thirty partners who will contribute to the development of the activities of the competence center, including Politecnico di Milano, University of Bologna, Politecnico di Torino, European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprises, Fondazione Italia Sociale. The assignment of this role to Turin, which will be able to take advantage of this opportunity to position itself as a world hub for social innovation, will bring honors but also burdens: in fact, the Turin center will have a role of international coordination of its counterparts that are being created at the same time in Greece, Romania and Slovenia.