On Monday 26th June, during the Converging Skills event held at the University of Pisa, the birth of Start Attractor was announced. A meeting point between research and industry that aims to make the University of Pisa a development engine for the local and national territory. “Start Attractor will not be a simple start-up incubator”, explained Rector Riccardo Zucchi to the audience of entrepreneurs and financiers, researchers and founders of start-ups, at the opening of the meeting which took place at “La Sapienza” university building in Pisa. “, For entrepreneurs it will be a way of accessing all that the University can offer them, facilitating research, continuous teaching, recruitment and support for embracing new technologies”.
All this is part of a broader strategy of the University of Pisa, the four E strategy: educate, experiment, execute and exit. “While the first two phases are traditional for the university, the last two will take place thanks to Start Attractor,” continues Deputy Vice-Rector Giuseppe Iannaccone. “Start Attractor will select the most innovative young companies, it will promote their growth through mentoring and recruiting and bring them to full development. At the same time, it will promote networking with investors and large companies, helping them to innovate'.
Start Attractor will be one of a kind in Italy to have a board of international advisors, four to six renowned experts, who will assess and promote the most promising projects. There will not be physical headquarters for companies, but it will provide high value-added managerial, financial and technological services. “The idea, says Corrado Priami, delegate for the valorisation of research and for new entrepreneurial initiatives at the University of Pisa, “is to enhance the excellence of the Pisan area and at the same time attract excellence from all over the world by promoting the qualified employment of young talent and fostering the development of successful young companies”.
The facility will have an estimated running cost of around 1 million euros per year, but the aim is to make it self-sustainable soon, so that partners’ investments can decrease. Start Attractor is scheduled to start up during 2024. “We strongly believe in Start Attractor,” Priami concludes, “but the university cannot do everything on its own. As of now, we are actively looking for partners who believe in the project and want to set out along this path with us.
The Converging Skills event was held from 26th to 29th June at “La Sapienza” university building in Pisa, open to the public with eighty speakers, all internationally renowned in the world of start-up, finance, industry and scientific research, technology transfer and open innovation.