The innovation ecosystem born on the initiative of Entopan takes shape in Tiriolo, in the province of Catanzaro, with an investment of 35 million euros from the Infrastructure fund for the growth of the Azimut group. The Harmonic Innovation hub – which among the partners has the Open Innovation Plug and Play platform – wants to make technological capital a tool for the enhancement of environmental, social and human resources, to satisfy emerging and unexpressed needs, to affirm culture sustainability and overcoming inequalities. It is the paradigm of harmonic innovation, which implements cultural, social and entrepreneurial biodiversity to produce civil growth, development and legality.
To explore the present and future scenarios of South innovation, Entopan and Ernst & Young, in partnership with Bper Banca, organized an event on innovation as an engine of sustainable harmonic future for Calabria and Southern Italy on Monday 11 July in Catanzaro. The intent is to trace existing models in the area and restore centrality to the South. Participants, among others: Andrea Zorzetto, managing partner of Plug and Play, Maurizio Muzzupappa, delegate of the Rector of Unical for Technology Transfer, Fortunato Amarelli, CEO of Amarelli Fabbrica di Liquirizia, Andrea Cornetti, CEO of Real Estate and Infrastructures of Azimutm, Giuseppe La Boria, territorial director for Calabria and Sicily of Bper Banca, Pasqualino Scaramuzzino, president of Harmonic Innovation Hub, Francesco Cicione, founder of Entopan, and the president of the Calabria Region, Roberto Occhiuto.
The socio-economic context and the drive for innovation in the region are the focus of the analysis conducted for EY by Antonio Lombardo, who tackles the southern question in new terms: «Innovation represents the main vector of social development for the Calabrian territory. Trying to project the current territorial distribution of the PNRR measures, we can hypothesize for the Calabrian territory an overall investment of about 9 billion euros – he says – a number that gives a clear indication: in the coming years, public investment will be more than doubled “. The difficulties in innovating in Calabria are known, for the brain drain, for the few combinations of public and private, for the scarce high-tech activities, “but it is possible to leverage – says Lombardo – on an efficient university system and on centers of excellence such as the Harmonic Innovation Hub, which aims to accompany and accelerate innovation processes. The approval of the Tech4You project, Technologies for climate change adaptation and quality of life improvement, born from the collaboration between the state universities of Calabria and Basilicata, together with the Cnr offices, is also a sign. ” It is one of the 11 innovation ecosystems funded by the NRP, in second place in the national ranking. The headquarters will be the Unical.
«I founded Entopan, which in Greek means“ the whole in one ”, about 20 years ago with the desire to embed the idea of innovation in classical culture – explains founder Francesco Cicione. -. For some years this path has led us to promote the birth of the Harmonic Innovation Hub, an ecosystem that wants to implement the most advanced models on a corporate scale that have also produced effects on a territorial scale. Thus we have aggregated large players, centers of expertise, large investment funds ». And the spaces are doubled: to the 20 thousand square meters in Calabria, as many are added in Catania, which is soon to be opened, “as if to consolidate a new Magna Graecia, Ionic, Mediterranean platform, citing Fernand Braudel – says Cicione -. We propose ourselves as a hinge between Africa, Europe and the Middle East to determine the innovative growth of this vast area by connecting it to the great international systems of technological innovation. The South is truly a growth reserve for Italy and Europe. Innovative startups as well as those enrolled in Stem subjects are growing in percentage compared to the rest of the country. There is a hot wave, a latent energy, which needs vanishing points to emerge ».