On 10th of Sept., 2019, the Demo Day of Italian Global Start up Program in Shanghai was held at XNode Zhangjiang. The representatives from Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality, Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai, Shanghai Technology Innovation Center, Italian Trade Agency joined the event and extended their regards to the 11 Italian teams.

As the first batch, the 11 Italian startups coming to China has been in the middle of the 3-month acceleration time. The Program covers a wide range of trainings and workshops to share entrepreneurship knowledge, to investigate business environment, to optimize technical solutions, to link with industrial resources, to network with investors, etc. The 11 teams has experienced both challenges and opportunities, covering adaption to Chinese culture, understanding of market, exploration of business, etc. On the Demo Day, they are sharing what they have learned and achieved from the Program. Your attention and supports are highly appreciated!

The 11 Italian startups focus on sectors in IoT, AI, auto, aviation, VR, life science and etc. On Demo Day, they demonstrated their project and their roadmap in China. After the roadshow, they will keep going with the program till October with more exploration in China market with the support of the 4 accelerators. Hopefully, they can make further progress during the program.

‍

About the program

The Sino-Italian cooperation is reaching its 50-year anniversary. Since the last visit of the officials of the Ministry of Italian Economic Development, to Shanghai last November, the negotiations with STIC around workplan, services model, assessing standards and so on were in progress. With dedicated research on innovation ecosystem in Shanghai, ITA initiated the program and launched it in June, 2019.

The first edition of the Italian Global Start up Program links with inno-ecosystems in Slovenia, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Japan and Republic of Korea. For China, Shanghai is the first landing city. Italian Trade Agency Shanghai Office (ITA Shanghai) and Shanghai Technology Innovation Center (STIC) jointly implement the Program. With a half-year preparation and negotiation based on mutual trusts between ITA and STIC, the 4 accelerators (i.e. Caohejing Innovation Center, XNode, InnoSpace and neoBay) was managed to shortlist among over 500 incubation players in Shanghai, to play as co-organizers for this program.

About the GATEWAY

The GATEWAY, a Shanghai-based Inno-Community was really helpful for stimulating the effective operation of Italian Global Start up Program in Shanghai, and proved the international experiences and professional competences of Shanghai innovation eco-system. The Overseas Startup Gateway Program(GATEWAY Network) was initiated by Shanghai Technology Innovation Center (STIC) in 2016, with 31 accelerators and services providers being carefully selected as the members. The GATEWAY network focuses on “internationalization”, “startups” and ”collaboration” , helping overseas SMEs to land in China (Shanghai) and assisting local ones in going global. The practical interaction between GATEWAY members during the past 3 years brought out real collaborative relationships which promoted the first time for several Shanghai-based accelerators to work like a group in providing complementary resources and integrated services for a cross-border scaleup program. Now, as it’s reaching the mid-term of the program, the 4 accelerators have proved their capability of providing high standards professional support to overseas startups.