Startup Thinking

Startup Thinking Observatory activities

Within the annual edition, the Startup Thinking Observatory conducts the following activities:

• Research and Scouting Workshop (Italian and English)

Five rounds of Research related to specific fields chosen each year to identify and analyze the most interesting Italian and international startups in each specific field. For each defined Research area, a startup census, mapping, and analysis phase is conducted. The following is also developed for each census: a Detailed Database, a Scenario Booklet, Detailed data Sheets. Each Research cycle closes with a Pitch Workshop (5) to discuss the innovation opportunities analyzed and the startups’ pitches (roughly 10 per meeting) chosen with partners. Partners are actively involved in the pre- and post-Workshop phases through one2one moments of discussion with Researchers. Support is also provided for Partner companies to schedule one2one direct meetings with startups of interest and for follow-ups with Researchers. Over the past ten years, more than 21000 startups have been analyzed and surveyed.

• Awareness Raising Workshops

The project also includes five follow-up workshops each year on the processes that characterize the approach to Open Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship, to acquire skills and methodologies, share best practices through the participation of professors from the Politecnico di Milano and other universities, experts, guest speaker testimonials and direct experience sharing among partners, and experiential discussion tables.

• Collaboration and discussion tables

Each edition, Partner Discussions/Collaboration Tables are organized, focused on cultural transformation and process innovation review issues, or topics of interest to the partners. The tables are supported methodologically and operatively by experts from Politecnico di Milano.

• Community

Startup Thinking brings together the leading as well as the broadest Community of Innovation Managers in Italy, The tenth edition of the project counted over 600 individual attendees from Partner companies at project meetings.

• Project work with students and Poli Lab Experience

Startup Thinking opens its doors to some of the many assets of the Politecnico di Milano University. In fact, it offers the opportunity to conduct projects with students from the Politecnico di Milano on briefs that are interesting to partners, to visit the main laboratories of the Politecnico di Milano, and to have privileged access to the Startups hosted by Polihub Innovation Park and Startup Accelerator of the Politecnico di Milano.

• Visibility operations for Partners

The project sustains the visibility of partner organizations engaged in a path of cultural transformation toward open innovation with a spillover effect on their brand awareness and attractiveness, with the additional intent of revitalizing and stimulating the country’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Visibility is sustained through participation in collaboration and discussion tables, round tables, Digital Innovation Observatories Workshops and Conferences, as guest speakers at GSoM Politecnico di Milano Courses, and through collaboration with magazines (EconomyUp, Startupbusiness, Digital4Executives, over 60 publications in the tenth edition), with scheduled periodic releases covering the experiences of partners, as well as Social Media actions.

• Annual open conference

Every year there is also an Open Conference addressed to all those “involved” in innovation to which Partners can participate as speakers in the panel discussions. The event is jointly organized with the Hi-tech Startup Observatory and the Digital Transformation Academy Observatory. Last year’s conference was attended by more than 30 speakers and more than 500 attendees.

• Weekly Newsletter and Project Repository

Researches and Workshops are complemented by a weekly Newsletter with the most important news on open innovation and Italian and international startups, to provide extensive and continuous knowledge of the opportunities provided by this sector and the most promising realities.

All results of all editions can be accessed through the project repository.