Marzotto Venture Accelerator, an Italian-based venture capital firm specialising in scaling up startups, recently joined forces with Campus Bio-Medico University in Rome to establish the call for ideas Covid-19 Challenge in the fight against the pandemic and its repercussions. The initiative seeks ideas, projects and solutions that leverage emerging technologies to support and improve healthcare services, general production systems and the lives of Italian citizens to ensure business continuity and the return to normal life after the Coronavirus.
At Enel, we hosted the challenge on our Open Innovability® (OI) crowdsourcing platform in order to support Marzotto Venture Accelerator and their search for new solutions. The initiative was a huge success and represents a great opportunity for Enel to engage and communicate with startups globally.
An impactful call with impactful solutions
After two months of rigorous scouting, the initiative collected over 500 proposals – with more than 200 coming from our OI platform. Now, Marzotto Venture Accelerator will proceed to the evaluation phase.
The Covid-19 Challenge achieved worldwide recognition, as candidates presented solutions from over 20 different countries including Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Colombia, Brazil, the United States and the United Kingdom. By using social media and other channels, we were able to optimise the way the challenge was promoted and to give it a global impact.
In order to select the winning projects, Marzotto Venture Accelerator will evaluate the proposals that best meet the challenge requirements. The winners will have the opportunity to collaborate with the venture capital firm, scale-up, and access financial, technical, scientific, managerial and logistical facilities.
Enel and Marzotto Venture Accelerator on the road to the “New normal”
At Enel, we actively seek and work alongside initiatives that contribute to a positive change in the world. This particular challenge is a tangible example of the Open Innovation approach, and better yet of the Open Innovability® approach, because of the way it promotes sustainability and collaborative thinking.
Stemming from a wide range of sectors within the healthcare ecosystem, the proposed solutions represent a great opportunity for future collaborations with Enel. Amongst the specialties seen, many projects have a unique focus on data analysis and intelligence, cybersecurity, smart logistics, smart working and the overall wellbeing and care of consumers. With these future collaborations in mind, we aim to contribute to planting the seeds of a brighter, stronger and more united future.