Tomato peels turned into candles, helicopter ailerons into diaries, electrode scraps into bottle caps. Susanna Martucci, head of a benefit company, is the winner of the 15th edition of the Gammadonna Award, which since 2004 has valorised the innovative soul of female entrepreneurship, hosted for the third consecutive year by the recently concluded Italian Tech Week. Since 1994 Alisea has been designing and producing design and everyday objects, building materials and resources for sustainable fashion, using industrial waste materials from supply chains designed exclusively according to the principles of the circular economy. In 2013 the encounter with graphite powder, a very precious waste thrown in tons into landfill by factories that produce electrodes. Winning patents are born from here: such as an innovative system for dyeing fabrics that saves 90% of water and 47% of energy or as the only pencil produced in Italy that consumes waste without producing new ones during the production cycle (no use of wood, paints or glues), writing 21 times longer than a common pencil and also present in the Design Store of the MoMA in New York.
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The choice to focus on innovation as a factor in business development, even before being a commercial need, was a personal need.
Susanna Martucci with Valentina Parenti and Marco Parenti, on the right Claudia Persico, winner of the 2022 edition
“Innovating is not only indispensable – commented Susanna Martucci on receiving the Award – it is gratifying, even on a social level, a fundamental contribution to the improvement of people’s lives. A push where there is no real difference between women or men, but which perhaps it is more tiring for female entrepreneurs who have to overcome expectations linked to custom, and in some cases leave their comfort zone”. Generators of technology and revolutionary ideas that bet on new business and governance models, creating real chains of sustainable innovation.
Together with Susanna Martucci also on stage Sabrina Fiorentino co-founder of Sestrea company that transforms the nutrients of the Mediterranean diet into nutraceutical supplements to support female hormonal problems, wins the “Giuliana Bertin Communication Award” in recognition of ability to communicate your business.
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The special prize for innovative startup, promoted by Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, goes to Hemera Pharmaa biotech spin-off born from the research of two universities in Verona and Milan, and currently led by Christiana Vignoli. Hemera’s cell therapy is a candidate to be the first treatment in the world for spinal cord injuries, potentially healing 500,000 patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases.
Recognition tosustainable business instead goes to Roberta Ligossi founder of Ta-Da which won the “WE for Sustainability Award” promoted by Cottino Social Impact Campus. With an all-female team under 35, Roberta founded an “e-commerce content” dedicated to contemporary craftsmanship, with a community of 200 thousand followers and a European network of 5 thousand artisan workshops from all over Europe, aiming to raise awareness of new generations towards more ethical and sustainable consumption and at the same time contributing to the survival and evolution of small local craftsmanship.
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“Stories that confirm the key role that innovative businesses led by women can have in the social and economic relaunch of the country according to a model of sustainable and inclusive development – he underlined Valentina ParentiPresident of GammaDonna – it is now clear that only an economy of sustainable innovation will be able to allow Made in Italy to regain competitiveness on the international market and place the country at the center of solid and lasting economic development”.
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