Start Cup Bergamo 2018

July 10, 2018

Fondazione Pesenti, strengthening its collaboration with the University of Bergamo, supports from this year Start Cup Bergamo 2018, an opportunity to enhance the business ideas of new generations, and in particular the projects originated from Bergamo 2.035, an initiative that for several years has seen the Foundation alongside the University of Bergamo and Harvard University – Graduate School of Design.

Start Cup Bergamo

Start Cup Bergamo 2018 is a business competition and a complete entrepreneurial training path, designed and carried out by the University of Bergamo, which offers students and aspiring entrepreneurs the possibility to begin their challenge towards a successful future as startuppers.

The project also aims to consolidate the relationship between the University of Bergamo and the economic-industrial fabric of the territory through the strengthening of research valorization activities and technology transfer.

The University and Fondazione Pesenti, through Start Cup, intend to concretely support young talents by enhancing their inventive potential and entrepreneurial spirit, so that they may become engines for the creation and growth of new enterprises with high potential for innovation and development.

Press conference Start Cup Bergamo 2018, from left Daniele Gamba, Tommaso Minola, Remo Morzenti Pellegrini, Sergio Cavalieri, Paolo Pressiani.

2018 Edition

Start Cup 2018 will especially valorize the sectors of advanced manufacturing, health and personal care, creative and cultural industries, corresponding to specific training modules, realized thanks to the contribution of new partners. The choice of focusing on these areas has two motivations: on one hand, in these sectors, a proliferation of innovative opportunities is observable, seized by small and young companies capable of competing on a global scale with industrial giants and establishing new technological standards; on the other hand, in these areas the multidisciplinarity of technological, social, and cultural skills is successful and well represented by the research and training offer of Unibg.

Fondazione Pesenti’s ambition is primarily to support the best proposals, also highlighting their characterization in terms of “impact investing,” meaning projects capable of positively impacting the social dynamics of the territory.

The ninth edition will also be characterized by new aspects such as collaboration with Tsinghua University in Beijing, considered one of the best universities worldwide in engineering and computer science.

Sergio Crippa, Secretary General of Fondazione Pesenti.

The ninth edition of Start Cup Bergamo confirms some appointments:

− the Team Building Day, aimed at creating multidisciplinary groups that will be protagonists of the subsequent entrepreneurial training path; the event is open to aspiring entrepreneurs with a business idea and anyone willing to challenge their creativity by joining them.

− the Start Cup School, an advanced entrepreneurial training path developed with the Universities of Cambridge and Maastricht (thanks to the Excellence Initiative called “Campus Entrepreneurship” funded by the University), which will provide all useful elements for the development of the idea and its validation into a business plan ready to be presented to investors;

− entrepreneurial support, provided by academic tutors and industrial mentorship;

− the final event to be held in October 2018, at the end of the training path, within the framework of BergamoScienza;

− a follow-up phase in which projects will have opportunities or accreditation with the University, through close collaboration with University Departments and Research Centers for their technical and economic valorization, making easier the transition from idea to business creation, finding financial resources and forming first commercial alliances; or international development at the Universities of Cambridge and Maastricht within the “Campus Entrepreneurship” initiative.

Starting this year, a selected team will have the possibility to benefit from a study period in Beijing at X-lab, the platform of Tsinghua University dedicated to entrepreneurial training and innovation.