The other Italy

I just received this message from our friend Charles Versaggi that I thought would be interesting to share. It gives a good prospective on how second/third generation Italian-Americans are perceiving what's happening in Italy. It follows a pretty interesting debate raised a few days ago during the BAIA event "Transplanting start-ups in Silicon Valley: does it work?"

Buongiorno Marco,

As I work more closely with the Mind the Bridge Foundation and the Italian business sector, I'm learning more and more about the "other Italy."Underneath the romanticism of Tuscan villas and La Dolce Vita, lies another Italy I'm only now beginning to comprehend and understand. Starting with the enigma of Berlusconi and the 'sclerotic gerontocracy' he oversees, to the mass exodus of its educated youth, I can't help but conclude Italy is undergoing a socio-economic crisis that threatens its future stature as a 21st Century world player — and I'm not talking about the World Cup.

I appreciated the thoughtful comments you and the other panelists provided at last Thursday's BAIA event. Sensing you and others were only scratching the surface of an ongoing dilemma, I dug deeper and read your recent blog http://siliconvalley.corriere.it/2010/10/italia_si_italia_no.html and the string of TIME links that gave me an eyeopening overview of Italy's growing dilemma.

I agree with your three points recommending a global view. Indeed, we are all citizens of the world and participants in a global economy. But as an Italian-American who was conceived in Italy and born in the U.S., like a salmon that moves relentlessly upstream to its spawning grounds, I still have an instinctive yearning for my homeland. The dilemma of this first-generation Italian-American is that sometimes I'm not sure where home is. For today's bright Italian youth attempting to embrace a world view, I suspect the conundrum is all the more frustrating.

All the best,

Charles

IAG invests in Spreaker

It's finally official.

We are really glad to report that IAG (Italian Angels for Growth, the main Italian angel investment group) has agreed in investing in Spreaker.
We are talking about a seed investment (250K Euro), but still, I'm sure that Francesco & Co will go a long way with that.

That's a good testament of the impressive work that Francesco has been able to accomplish when still in bootstrapping. During its 3 months at the GYM, Spreaker built up a pretty solid reputation, coming up as one of the most interesting new kids in town.

Congrats kids, that's another important step forward.

I'm sure, we'll see you soon around here...

Interview to Francesco Baschieri

Today we want to introduce our special friend,Francesco Baschieri. He is the founder of Spreaker, the first start up that has joined the Mind The Bridge GYM this summer in San Francisco.
Francesco is a serial entrepreneur, passionate about new technologies and business models and always interested in the next innovation that will change the world.
Spreaker, his last adventure, is a true Web Radio 2.0 where every show is created by the audience itself. Spreaker has shifted the paradigm from creating a complete radio stream to producing a single show. Radio stations are then created by assembling single pieces (one after another) into a continuous stream of audio.
“Creating a show is easy and does not require any technical expertise: all the necessary tools that users might need are available online at www.spreaker.com. The DeeJay Console TM allows users to mix live audio input from their microphone with music tracks and sound effects which are available online as part of a large user-friendly library.

The entire service is free of charge for the user: it is Spreaker that manages the whole infrastructure and pay for music royalties.”

At the well-known Pier 38 Francesco has spent 3 months trying to bring his start up to an international dimension: he has participated to numerous events, business meetings and social happenings and was actively participating to the entrepreneurial life of the city. For this reason we thought to realize the following interview in which he presents his company and tell us his experience in the Silicon Valley.

For those that might join our crew in the future, take into consideration all his suggestions.
Ciao Francesco, It was a pleasure to work with you!

It was a great Boot Camp!

In Varese we welcomed the 32 startups selected from our 2010 MTB Business Plan Competition. We opened them the doors to our Boot Camp, a 3-day training and coaching program, aimed at helping startups to clarify, create, and communicate their entrepreneurial vision into a viable business plan worthy of financial support. During the workshop, we continued our selection process, extracting the short list of 15 semi-finalists that will present @ Corriere della Sera in Milan on November 5th-6th.


The Boot Camp kicked off with a workshop and public forum designed to address the challenges and opportunities of Italian entrepreneurship. It was hosted at the Faculty of Science. During the Open Workshop Alberto Onetti presented some data about Italian startups and highlighted the main issues entrepreneurs face in Italy while starting up a company (here is the link for the slides). Charles Versaggi, the Boot Camp Program Director, explained how to tell your business story. At the end of the workshop Elizabeth Robinson (Co-founder, NicOX), Marco Asquini (Co-owner, General Manager, SUPER/FLUO) and Maurizio Liverani (Baryon Capital) told their own entrepreneurial story. Francesco Baschieri provided some feedbacks from his recent stay at the MtB Gym in San Francisco. You can access the videos from our MindtheBridgeTv channel on You Tube.


The remaining part of theBoot Camp was held in the gorgeous venue of Villa ToepliTz. The Program was run by top notch instructors and included the following topics:

- The Story: Articulating the Value Proposition (by C. Versaggi)
- Business models and strategy — understanding the value chain (by A. Onetti)
- Project, product or company? How to assess and qualify technologies as a basis for starting a company (by A. Onetti)
- Legal considerations in forming a company (by T. Cherubino)
- Financing: the capitalization process and financing strategies (by C. Maifredi)
- The capital raising process - Pre-money/post-money valuation, the term sheet (by M. Liveerani and A. Onetti)
- Anatomy of a Business Plan (by C. Versaggi and A. Onetti)

It was a great Boot Camp as you can perceive from the comments some participants posted on our Facebook Wall. You can feel the energy and passion we experienced during the 3 days we spent with the startups in Varese.

"Hello guys, I'm really happy to attended the Bootcamp, one of my best experiences. I met very smart people, from whom I learned a lot"
"Great BootCamp! All tutors where really top level. Charles was en-lighting. MtB organizers and Onetti have done a terrific job! Thanks all for the great experience and good luck to all partecipants"
"Thanks all for amazing experience. Thanks to MTB team and to Charles, that he sent us the right enthusiasm to take forward our plans well...See you all in Pavia soon"
"Thanks to all of you Folks! Continue in this direction with enthusiasm, passion and a vision to realize your business dreams!"

Introducing the Italian MtB Team

Together with our activities, the MtB Italian team is growing quickly, with the arrival of 2 new MTB members, Federica and Simona, and the external support of 3 members from the CrESIT reseach centre (Alessia, Marco and Manuela).
Some of you met them in Varese @ the MtB Boot Camp (the pic on the left was taken right there, at Villa ToepliTz). It is now time to introduce them, one by one.


Federica Pepponi has a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Finance from Bocconi University. During this summer, Federica was able to manage the hundreds of business plans and ideas we received and coordinated with the Selection Committee members. "Most of the startups submitted the very last day ... July 31st was quite a day (and night), I needed 3 days to recover".





Simona Bielli graduated in Economic and Management from Insubria University. She spent the summer (without enjoing a single day of sun, but meeting "genial minds and delicious people") in San Francisco and now she's back in Italy as part of our team. She coordinated all the logistics of the Boot Camp, chasing the partecipants one-by-one.



For the main events the MtB team is supported and integrated by 3 members of the CrESIT Research Centre (University of Insubria).

Alessia Pisoni holds a Ph.D. from the University of Insubria in Economics of Production and Developmenic and coordinates the CrESIT Research Unit.









Marco Talaia is member of the CrESIT Research Centre and Ph.D. candidate at University of Pavia. He has been Visitin Scholar at San Francisco State University in 2007.










Manuela Menegotto is member of CrESIT Research Group, where she manages activities in the areas of innovation and international business.









All of them are young people. They bring a fresh breath of enthusiasm and passion, and, most importantly, they share our vision: to promote a new Italian entrepreneurial ecosystem that is ethical, highly professional, internationally focused and excellence driven
Thank you guys for the good work you did and will do!

Living the MtB Social Community

[Published by Leonardo Ratti, MTB Community Manager]

There is something new going on in these last few months within the Mind The Bridge world, beside the terrific success of our summer special events in Torino and Cagliari and the MtB Boot Camp just terminated in Varese.
An entire new wave of friends, fans, followers or people simply interested in the subject are joining our online community bringing enthusiasm and passion but also precious comments and feedback on our activities and future events.

Born with the MtB blog on our website and the Silicon Valley blog @Corriere.it , the MtB Social Community has been experiencing in the last two years a tremendous increase in terms of followers and tools used with the introduction of the MtB Facebook page, the MtB LinkedIn group, the Mind The Bridge Tv Channel on Youtube and the Twitter profile.
But there's something more than a simple increase of attention on our social media profiles.
The Foundation has a strong awareness that building a social community is crucial from different perspectives.
On the one hand, being involved in these channels means being part of the social network, the space where, for the most part, our start-ups are promoting their projects.
On the other hand, this allows us to collect "the buzz" on entrepreneurship, new ventures and innovation in Italy and to take advantage of these inputs to leverage our strategy and better help all the stakeholders involved in the process of innovate the Italian eco-system.

We have a dedicated team within the Foundation that will be in charge of exploiting each communication channel in the most effective way. Obviously the most important resource to reach this goal is the contribution from our start-ups, Alumni, followers and friends. In one word YOU!
This movement will really spearhead the backbone of the MtB community. Let's get started! Take a look at the videos just uploaded on our MindTheBridge TV on the latest BootCamp and start posting your comments and feedback.
We expect to have special promotions, prices, etc. for our active online community members.

See you on-line!

Leonardo Ratti, MtB Community Manager.

Lost in translation

Charles Versaggi is an interesting man. He's charming, he knows a thing or two about communications and he has a good sense of humor. That whole mix made him the perfect director for our first bootcamp.

And so it was, as I'm learning from the participants feedback. Alas, I couldn't make it to Varese. However, he shared a note with me today that gave me the whole picture of what I missed.

This goes under the category of Italians meet Americans, and vice-versa.
I thought I'd share it with you all.
Here it comes:

"Marco, I thought I'd share a couple of funny moments from the bootcamp.

One of the business plan presentations concerned a web-based business to help people with common sports interests find each other online.

The first slide of his B-plan presentation: "Stop Playing With Yourself!"

The class roared. The class roared again after I said, "Well, there's really no reason why you shouldn't play with yourself. But that's really your business."

It's amazing what a well placed preposition can do for communication.

Another one that got a few laughs. One of the life science participants presented his business plan for a new type of implantable bladder sphincter. His first slide showed a picture of the male anatomy with the sphincter apparatus placed strategically around a massive disproportionately large penis that hung down to the bottom of the slide. The apparatus looked more like a device to treat erectile dysfunction. I swear he got this image from a porn site (now, of course, you're wondering how I knew that...).

There were a few blushed faces on the women in the classroom, although they didn't seem too shocked. You got to love Europeans when it comes to celebrating the human anatomy."

Right Charles, you gotta love "Europeans"...

Startups admitted to 2010 MTB Venture Camp

After collecting the feedback from all the Instructors @ MtB Boot Camp in Varese, our selection committee has finally completed its effort. Below you can find the list of the 15 startups admitted to pitch at the Venture Camp event in November (Milan @ Corriere della Sera). The final ranking merges the original evaluation from the desk analysis and the qualitative analisys we performed during the 3-day Boot Camp.

Congratulation to the winners but also to those that did not make it: tune your business plan and do not give up! That's why we decided to open the Coaching session in Pavia also to the remaining 17 startups. We are confident that they can be the next protagonists!
STARTUPS ADMITTED TO 2010 MIND THE BRIDGE VENTURE CAMP

> ADMOBSPHERE
> eRALOS3
> FUBLES
> GET CONNECTED MOPAPP
> INTERVIEWEB
> ISN VIRTUAL WORLDS
> KONKURI
> MINTEOS
> PORCO VINO
> RADIO TOUCH
> ReMEMBRANE
> SMANIA
> UNPLUGGED
> WE SPORT
> XAPIO

Stay connected for more details and ... see you in October in Pavia and in November in Milan!

Genefinity: the value of academic research

Today we are proud to introduce our new friend, Stefano Maggiolino, that has recently joined us at Pier 38. Stefano is the co-funder of Genefinity, a spin-off from the University of Trieste. The idea of Genefinity was born in 2005 with the intention of valuing the research developed within the University Labs and using that for business purposes. At that time, the team was composed by Nicola Scuor, Francesca Antoniolli, Stefano Visintin, Vanni Lughi, Luigi Marras, Paolo Gallina and of course Stefano Maggiolino. It was only in 2006, after having won numerous prizes (Start cup, PNI, European Young Entrepreuneurs Adward), that Genefinity was incorporated and became a separate entity. Among the shareholders that joint their vision there were the University of Trieste, DGR consulting and the Local Holding Company, Friulia Spa.

Genefinity has developed an innovative and cost efficient process named GHOST (Genefinity Hi-resolution One Step Transfer) that consists in the deposit of thin films within specific patterns on flexible superficies.

The GHOST process can be applied to the manufacture of numerous products like diagnostic test strips, printed electronics devices (smart card, RFID antennas) and other industrial tools (temperature and pressure sensors).

The target market is mainly composed by companies that are headquartered in Silicon Valley and California, that’s why Stefano Maggiolino came to San Francisco: “we want to meet them, learn from their experience and eventually find out if we can make synergies with them. Here in the Bay Area we have a plethora of potential customers: Abbott Diabetes Care is based in Alameda; LifeScan, owned by J&J Group, is based in Milpitas; Intuity Medical is based in Sunnyvale; other diabetes care leaders are headquartered in US or have North America headquarters: Roche, Bayer, Niprodiagnostic, Nova Biomedical. I can continue the list with numerous potential commercial partners (Parlex, Flextronics, …).”

Stefano looks really committed on his project and want to fully invest his time in the Gym. “My agenda is crowded. Our intention is also to raise capital for investment purposes. We intend to expand our business to the US, but, to do this, we need to build a plant that serves the local market and use the GHOST technology.

Genefinity is an example of how to profit from the research and use it as a competitive advantage. Being a P.h.D graduated student doesn’t necessarily means to spend the entire life in a dark and isolated lab. “We have many ideas: the MAXUN project (an innovative photovoltaic panel), for example, is one of them and we hope that in the next future these ideas will turn in a company like Genefinity", a brave start up that employs 12 brilliant recently graduated engineers.

Selection is completed. And the winners are ...

After spending a full month working on it, our Selection Committee coordinated by Fabrizio Capobianco has finally completed its job. Selecting the best business plans has been quite a challenge, because the number and quality of the proposals we received.
In our selection process we focused on quality, with a particular attention on diversity, including subject matter, geography and gender. We decided to merge the Business Plan Competion and Call for Ideas into a single ranking.
Below, you find the list of the startups admitted to the Mind the Bridge BootCamp (in Varese, from September 23rd through September 25th). It is a 30+ list. During the Bootcamp we will extract the short list of the 15 semi-finalists presenting @ Corriere della Sera in Milan in November.
Congratulations to the selected startups and also to those that did not make it: tune your business plan and do not give up!

> ADMOBSPHERE
> ASV
> BIOPAN
> CITY TOURING
> eRALOS3
> FUBLES
> GANTOR
> GET CONNECTED MOPAPP
> HAPPY MINUTE
> INTERVIEWEB
> ISN VIRTUAL WORLDS
> KONKURI
> MAKOO
> MINTEOS
> NETHICAL
> OKOBICI
> ORANGE CLOUD
> PARKVICE
> PHILANTHROBUSINESS
> PORCO VINO
> RADIO TOUCH
> ReMEMBRANE
> REPUTAG
> SECURO
> SMANIA
> TEAM
> TODAY EXTREME DISCOUNTS
> TZENTE
> UMBRA MED
> UNPLUGGED
> VIDEO PAY ME
> WE SPORT
> XAPIO



The selected startups are admitted - free of charge - to our Bootcamp (that will be held in Varese on Sep 23-25) and to the Coaching session (that is scheduled in Pavia on Oct 14-16). During these two events we provide the startups with tailored training and mentoring and select the 15 semi-finalists to be admitted to pitch at the Venture Camp in November (on Nov 5-6 @ Corriere della Sera in Milan).
More information by email and on our website. See you in Varese!