Monday, September 28, 2009

Why Italy? See Fabrizio Capobianco's convincing answers.



During the Gym presentation in Milano a couple of weeks ago, Fabrizio Capobianco - Funambol's ceo and Mind the Bridge board member - gave the audience a convincing presentation on the venture capitalists' mostly frequent asked question: Why Italy?

Enjoy!


GYM: launch of the 1st Presentation Skills module, Milano



It's official.
Starting in October, we'll be launching the first series of the MTB GYM training modules in Italy.

We start with what we believe is the most underestimated skill for Italian startups: presentation skills.

We'll be flying directly from the Silicon Valley Elisabetta Ghisini, a top notch professional in the field (more info in the attached flier).


We'll run 2 sessions of max 15 participants / class on Oct 20 and 21.
The coaching session is mandatory for the finalists presenting at the Venture Camp event, but open for other participants.
You can apply here. The availability is limited. This is your unique opportunity to greatly improve your chances of success in front of investors or clients.
Don't miss it!




Sunday, September 20, 2009

The Gym in Milano. The Italian start-up scene is moving!



Thursday, September the 17th in Milano, The Gym presentation in Milano have gathered a full auditorium of entrapreneurs, students, journalists.


We have listened to the foreword of Carol Perez, consul general general of the Us government in Italy, we have enjoyed the brilliant visual show of Roberto Bonzio and his fascinating study on the Italians who have made history, and - in the second part of the conference - we've had to chance to learn quite a bit from the presentations of Fabrizio Capobianco (Funambol), Marco Palombi (founder Tipi Inc - Splinder), Leandro Agrò (Wide Tag), Fabio Venturi (Neptuny) and professor Serrazzi of Politecnico di Milano.

The other day, Silicon Valley made us dream, and the testimonials in the room showed us that... the dream may come true!



Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Don’t miss the MTB Gym presentation in Milan

On Thursday, September 17th, we will present the MTB Gymnasium. The Gym , in short, is our startup school, where we will help Italian entrepreneurs with global dreams to make them real. Now that we have a team in Italy, we have definitively more bandwidth for supporting people to “mind the bridge”.
The project will be presented at the Auditorium of Politecnico di Milano, starting at 10.30am.


After the introduction, our Fabrizio Capobianco will be explaining what are the rules to participating and what are our medium term expectations on the project.During the Workshop we will announce the affiliation of the Foundation of Politecnico to the MTB Gym. It is an honor for us to partner with the Accelerator of Politecnico, one of the most important incubators in Italy.
Based on this affiliation agreement, Neptuny (the most promising startup coming out from the Poli Accelerator) will be incubated in the MTB GYM and start to benefit from our mentoring and training program. On Thursday morning we will have the chance to hear from Fabio Violante, founder and CEO of Neptuny, about how he is going to exploit this opportunity.
This is the full agenda of the event:

UN PONTE FRA DUE MONDI: MILANO - SILICON VALLEY. IL MIND THE BRIDGE GYMNASIUM E LE AZIENDE DELL'ACCELERATORE D'IMPRESA
Politecnico di Milano, Auditorium - Via Pascoli 53, Milano

Programma:

Ore 10:15: Registrazione dei partecipanti

Ore 10:30: Saluti di benvenuto e cenni introduttivi sull’accordo fra la Fondazione Politecnico di Milano - Acceleratore d’Impresa e la Mind the Bridge Foundation, Giampio Bracchi (Presidente, Fondazione Politecnico di Milano)

Ore 10:45: Il ruolo delle istituzioni americane nel sostegno all’imprenditorialità tecnologica in Italia Carol Z. Perez (Console Generale degli Stati Uniti d’America a Milano)

Ore 11:00: Storie di italiani nella Silicon Valley dalle origini a oggi (filmato)Roberto Bonzio (Reuters, Italiani di Frontiera)

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L’ESPERIENZA SILICON VALLEY
Modera: Emil Abirascid (Innov’azione, Il Sole 24Ore)
Il Mind the Bridge Gymnasium e il modello di sviluppo di Funambol, Fabrizio Capobianco (Mind the Bridge Foundation, Fondatore e A.D. Funambol)

Ore 11:40 Il network fra l’Italia e la Silicon Valley: come e perché è nato
Marco Palombi (Fondatore Tipi Inc. -Splinder, First Generation Network)

Ore 11:55 Neptuny e la Silicon Valley: globalizzare il successo
Fabio Violante (Fondatore e A.D., Neptuny)

Ore 12:10 California: miti da sfatare Leandro Agrò (Fondatore e A.D., Wide Tag Inc.)

Ore 12:25 Il progetto dell’Acceleratore e le opportunità per gli incubatori universitari italiani. Lancio della “call” per altre 3 start-up tecnologiche
Giuseppe Serazzi (Delegato del Rettore per l’Acceleratore d’Impresa del Politecnico di Milano e Consigliere PNICube)

Domande del pubblico e dibattito

Ore 13:00 Networking cocktail

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Milan's (and Italy's) first Startup Night


Yesterday night, Mikamai hosted the first ever Startup Night in its Milan offices.
More than 100 people showed up and it turned out to be a really great event.

We drove from Rome just to attend and meet the best and brightest of the newly-built italian tech scene. There where a lot of different participants: students, founders, consultants, investors, journalists, pr and general tech enthusiasts. It definitely was a good mix.

I must say, something is moving in Italy.

We are trying to build a community of passionate and innovative people, one step at a time. This is possible thanks to a lot of great people who see the potential of italian talent, creativity and general business knowledge to succeed in such a new, global, social and all-round strange market.

In october we are going to start with a series of monthly networking events in Rome. We want to bring the vibe, passion and drive that you can feel in London and Silicon Valley. We don't wanna mimic it, we'll do it our way.

And it's gonna rock.

Meanwhile you can check out yesterday night's videos and pictures.




Winners of the first selection for 2009

After spending a few weeks working on it, our selection committee has finally completed its effort. Selecting the best business plans has been a challenge, because the quality of the companies is quite high, better than any other previous Mind the Bridge (which is a great sign).

Below, you find the list of the startup admitted to the Venture Camp in November (in Milan). Congratulations to the winners and also to those that did not make it: tune your business plan and do not give up!


WINNERS OF MTB 2009 FIRST SELECTION
  • Adant
  • EchoLight
  • Ergo2000
  • Fluidmesh Networks
  • GetConnected (Postino)
  • KAEL
  • MoVoLo
  • Pervactive
  • Prossima Isola (Where is Now)
  • Targetbet
  • Thounds
  • TripShake.com
  • VRmedia
  • WiTech
See you in November!