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.

Batch 1 Demo Day in Shanghai

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.