Opening the season of the entrepreneurial missions organized in the framework of the SME4SMARTCITIES project, the Italian city of Genoa hosted two foreign delegations from Israel and Spain composed of 12 companies along with 16 Italian companies at the FILSE BIC Incubator on the 5th and 6th April 2022.

The tight schedule of seminars, networking workshops and site visits arranged by the staff of project partner and local host FILSE kept the Spanish, Israeli and Italian entrepreneurs quite busy. Thanks to the remarkable number of local stakeholders and users (see agenda below) who reached the event venue for the two days event to share their knowledge and experience, the participant SMEs had the opportunity to understand better the local context. A preliminary activity implying a great deal of importance in the design process to co-create the most suitable solution for the local challenges chosen by the municipalities involved in the SME4SMARTCITIES project.  

One of the most awaited and engaging moments was in fact the Q&A meeting with Stefania Manca, resilient manager of Genoa Municipality who presented and detailed the Genoa Challenges, focusing on the needs and expectations of the city in terms of improvements in the smart city sector. In order to be selected and receive a grant to develop the project, the companies’ proposal for the local challenge of Genoa must be focused on providing a climate proof toolkit for public spaces, able to measure the comfort parameters in urban areas in terms of air quality standards. A second local challenge addressed on the need for new monitoring technologies to preserve the critical infrastructures of the city's architectural and cultural heritage, in relation to climate change.

Another great opportunity for the participants SMEs was the speed date arranged by the technology developer selected by FILSE to foster the co-creation of project proposals among the participating companies: in the short time frame available each one of the 16 Italian companies managed to meet an average of 8 foreign entrepreneurs.

Other one to one meetings were organized during the two days as a way to better understand any particular need or matching expectation of the participant entrepreneurs. On day two the SMEs were also invited to pitch on stage and presenting their professional skills and needs to implement their project proposals.

At least 8 SMEs expressed their will to build transnational partnerships for their proposals as a result of this first networking event. Two more local events followed in the last two months and the outcomes are now in the hands of the evaluators who are reviewing the projects presented by the deadline of the call, on June 7th, 2022.