An interview with Vittorio Biondi, General Director of MUSA, to draw conclusions from the Startup Days, organised by MUSA and Regione Lombardia.
On the sidelines of the Startup Days – a two-day event dedicated to startups and their innovative projects – MUSA General Director Vittorio Biondi shared a balance of the great organisational commitment supported by Regione Lombardia and MUSA.
A constant and daily work that is reflected in days like these, characterised by commitment, stimulus and comparison. Events of this calibre were made possible thanks to the dedication of the entire team, who worked to offer an important opportunity for dialogue and growth for young entrepreneurs from the world of research.
What is the significance of the collaboration involving various organisations in the realisation of events such as StartCup Lombardia and Future Match?
The two days organised by MUSA in collaboration with the Lombardy Region, culminating in the StartCup Lombardia final (23 October) and the Future Match event (29 October), represent a fundamental moment for our ecosystem. First of all, these events are the result of a shared work with the regional institution, which is a member and partner of MUSA, and with which we have built several collaborations in these two years of activity. Moreover, the path that led us to these two events saw the participation of all ten Lombardy universities. In fact, not only did the four universities that promote MUSA (Milano-Bicocca, Politecnico, Bocconi and Statale) contribute to the realisation of StartCup Lombardia through their technology transfer centres, but all the universities in Lombardy participated in this process.
What did FutureMatch represent for MUSA and what goals did you set yourself with this experimental event?
The FutureMatch event was an experiment, a sort of gamble: for the first time, in fact, together with the Lombardy Region we devised an event that made it possible to valorise initiatives that had hitherto developed independently. On a single day, we brought together start-ups selected by StartCup Lombardia, those promoted by the ESA BIC programme, the Berkeley SkyDeck Europe start-ups, and those identified in the ‘Green Chemistry: Lombardy for Sustainable Development 2024’ competition. This allowed some forty start-ups, true ‘spearheads’ of innovation at regional level, to meet numerous potential investors and discuss their future together; a significant event that we hope will have further developments in the future.
It has already been two years since MUSA was launched. How can this initiative continue to develop beyond the PNRR funding?
In these very weeks we are reflecting, together with our partners – current and future – and the MUR, on the future of our Ecosystem. It is in the spirit of the PNRR to work on initiatives that do not end with the end of the extraordinary funding of which we are beneficiaries, but to ensure that, on the contrary, these resources represent an investment for the future. Initiatives such as those we are talking about consolidate the conviction, in us and in our partners, that a functioning Ecosystem can be useful for increasing the competitiveness of Milan and Lombardy. The intention is therefore to continue with activities geared to promoting entrepreneurship, innovation and support for small businesses, in full synergy with Lombardy’s institutions and universities, the business system and the varied world of the third sector.
