On December 19, 2024 at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan, the grand final event was held to officially conclude the 14th edition of Premio 2031, carried out with the support of Main Sponsors Repower and UniCredit Start Lab, as well as the many paths and prizes offered by the best Italian Innovation Centers (including I3P), the sponsors and the partners of the initiative, whose winners were chosen after a careful selection of the hundreds of applications received.
“A sincere thank you to all those who participated in the final awards evening of the 14th edition of Premio 2031, the culminating moment of a journey that highlighted the excellence of Italian innovation and the dynamism of start-ups,” commented Cristiano Seganfreddo, President of Premio 2031. “The evening was dedicated to those who stood out for their ability to develop cutting-edge solutions, with an eye always on sustainability and the creation of a more responsible future. It was, moreover, an extraordinary opportunity to bring together the entire Italian innovation ecosystem, promoting a fertile exchange of ideas and stimulating mutual inspiration.”
Point Zero wins Primo Round
The Primo Round award was won by Italian start-up Point Zero: receiving it during the evening was Henrique De Carvalho Pinheiro, Founder of the company, who presented ZEDS, a technology that aims to eliminate secondary particulate emissions from braking systems, with a combination of electric motor and the innovative magnetorheological brake, for safe, efficient and pollution-free mobility.
Point Zero is a spin-off of Politecnico di Torino, born from the efforts of three researchers - Henrique de Carvalho Pinheiro, Massimiliana Carello and Giovanni Imberti - and supported by I3P through Tech4Planet, the national technology transfer hub dedicated to environmental sustainability, of which the incubator is a technical partner.
InnovUp, the non-profit and super partes association that has been representing and uniting the entire supply chain of the Italian innovation ecosystem since 2012, has renewed its collaboration with Premio 2031 through the InnovUp Special Prize, intended for all start-ups that have won an acceleration path from an Innovation Center. “We are proud to consolidate the partnership between InnovUp and Premio 2031, which this year with the Primo Round format succeeds in representing and emphasizing the fundamental connection between innovation centers of excellence and start-ups. And this is why we are happy to offer the InnovUp Prize to all 34 finalist start-ups, as well as award the Primo Round Prize to Point Zero, as we believe in the vision and entrepreneurial idea of this young deeptech company that has managed to express a significant best practice in technology transfer,” said Giorgio Ciron, Director of InnovUp.
For the Jacobacci & Partners Special Award, the firm's professionals will analyze the coverage of the winning projects of all Special Awards from an intellectual property perspective in order to assess their degree of completeness, where already present, and/or to propose possible implementations. Enrica Acuto Jacobacci, CEO and President of Jacobacci & Partners, said: “Since 2012, Jacobacci & Partners has collaborated with Premio 2031 to promote and enhance innovation, fostering a virtuous circle that allows the most promising ideas to reach the market, generating concrete benefits for our country. For us, Premio 2031 represents an inspiring journey into the creativity of Italian start-ups, many of which pursue missions geared toward improving our future.”
The winners of the Innovation Centers
Among the projects winning the growth paths offered by the Innovation Centers partnering with Premio 2031, several are supported or have been supported in recent years by I3P:
- the Asfalto Sicuro® project, created by innovative start-up LOKI incubated in I3P and ESA BIC Turin, has been selected by Industrio Ventures. It is a hardware and software solution, installable on any vehicle, that through AI, cameras and satellite data automates detection and mapping of road defects to detect and geolocate potholes, cracks and both horizontal and vertical signage.
- DatAIMed, pre-incubated in I3P and selected by G-Factor, is an AI platform that makes scientific evidence accessible and integrable into clinical practice, supporting physicians and healthcare professionals in research, analysis, and education, with the goal of improving the quality of care and optimizing healthcare resources.
- Zerow, the B2B marketplace that helps luxury fashion brands achieve their #zerowaste goal by reselling and recycling excess materials, has been selected by SocialFare.
- Medicud, selected by Toscana Life Sciences, has developed a new reference for reducing postoperative complications: an advanced dressing that uses negative pressure in an ultraportable, environmentally friendly device to optimize healing and healthcare budgets.
- Point Zero's ZEDS project was also selected by PoliHub as its winner.
The incubator I3P then selected as its winner the project named Khooa, an innovative digitized personal shopping app that suggests the ideal product to enhance each user's image, helping to make targeted purchases and reducing waste and returns for a more satisfying and sustainable shopping experience.
