Florence plays a strategic card with the aim of qualifying itself as a city of innovation and training. In the former Medici granary on the banks of the Arno, built at the end of the seventeenth century by Grand Duke Cosimo III to preserve cereals in times of famine and then became the Cavalli barracks (where generations of Florentines made the visit of the draft), just born an ‘Innovation Center’ that has the mission to attract and grow young people and startups.
A start-up accelerator
The initiative is by the Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze Foundation, which purchased the historic building of eight thousand square meters in 2017, renovated it – with a total investment of 25 million euros – and filled it with contents in partnership with the public and private actors of the city. Now the Innovation Center is ready for take-off: an acceleration program for start-ups in the fashion, food and tourism sectors is launched, called ‘Italian Lifestyle’ and promoted by Fondazione Cr Firenze together with Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, the startup studio Nana Bianca and the Research and Innovation Foundation of the University of Florence.
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The call for 20 thousand euros
The call for the selection of start-ups (five per year in the three sectors) is open from 4 October and will close on 4 January 2022. The selected ones will receive an endowment of 20 thousand euros each, will be monitored by an Observatory and will be accompanied on a path of acceleration lasting 12 weeks held by Nana Bianca which is based in the Innovation Center. The challenge of the program – possible thanks to the involvement of the four promoters – is to make startups dialogue with large and medium-sized companies in the area, which will make their managers available.
Symbol of Florence 4.0
“It is the first program in Italy that involves public, private, universities and large companies in the area – explained Alessandro Sordi, vice president of Confindustria Firenze, presenting the initiative with all the other promoters – to interact with startups”. “We want this building to become one of the symbols of Florence 4.0 – underlined Luigi Salvadori, president of the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze – and that is why since 2016 we have intensified our efforts on innovation and technology transfer, in particular with the program Hubble which in six years has supported 30 startups ».
At coding school
The next step, announced by Salvadori, will be the opening in the Florentine Innovation Center of ’42Firenze’, a coding school created in collaboration with the Luiss University: the model, already reproduced in the capital with ’42 Roma Luiss’, is the French Ecole 42, a free school without teachers for computer programming enthusiasts who want to get involved. Objective: to train a new generation of young innovators, capable of leading the transition to the digital industry.