“There is nothing like a dream to create the future” (V.Hugo).
It’s the aphorism written in blue on the curriculum vitae of Alessia Gloder, CEO of Astradyne, the startup founded in 2022 that won the First Round prize offered by the 2031 platform (former Marzotto Prize) in collaboration with Italian Tech during the Italian Tech Week which ended yesterday afternoon at the OGR in Turin with the official presentation of the seven best on 51 new startups selected by a jury of well-known Italian investors.
Time for the awards ceremony. In the centre, Alessia Gloder, co-founder and CEO of Astradyne, the startup that won the First Round Award, between Cristiano Seganfreddo (left) and Riccardo Luna.
Born in 1992 in the province of Vicenza, Alessia enchanted the audience in the main room with a placid and confident voice in her disruptive project in the aerospace sector. Astradyne develops deployable structures for the space industry by integrating rigid-flex electronics with textile material.
From this technology was born SolarCube, a solar panel that opens like origami and thanks to a fabric substrate it is up to 30% lighter, three times more compact and with 50% more power than current solutions on the market.
“The strength of this technology is in its ability to reduce space – underlines the jury from the scientist and entrepreneur, now also an investor in startups, Stefano Buono – and furthermore it has already been chosen by an important operator like ESA so for us this represents an even greater incentive to invest”.
Astradyne was born in Puglia, an area full of opportunities for those who want to operate in the aerospace supply chain, from the meeting of 3 co-founders, initially doctoral students at the Polytechnic of Bari, and from their desire to commercialize the technical knowledge developed at the most prestigious academic centers in the world, including NASA-JPL. Astradyne does not plan to sell this technology independently but integrated into products such as the
SolarCube whose patent is being drafted and will be filed soon. A team that looks to the stars but also grows by imagining projects that look beyond the solar panel such as suits for pilots and astronauts, wearable devices, deployable antennas, inflatable space modules, and other applications in the aeronautical and terrestrial sectors.
“We are in the process of raising investments – explains Alessia Gloder – to arrive at the demonstration of our technology in orbit and therefore the marketing of the product, but since this is the aerospace sector it will realistically happen in 2025. In the meantime we intend to also commit ourselves to the green energy sector: our extremely versatile technology allows us to do this.”
From artificial intelligence to optimize software development to CO2 capture, from nanotechnologies applied in biotech to digital tools to support SMEs up to solutions for the elimination of particulate emissions for sustainable mobility: Arcan, Carpecarbon, Ilmiobokerassociazione.it , Inta and Plino are the other finalists of the First Round. All together ready to build the future.