Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT, Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center
and Techstars partner to create an innovation ecosystem in Torino, powered by OGR

A partnership to facilitate global connections and knowledge transfer for Italian and European entrepreneurs, investors, corporate innovators
    
TORINO – June 5, 2019 – Techstars, the worldwide network that helps entrepre-neurs succeed, and Turinese foundations Compagnia Di San Paolo and Fondazione CRT, and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, today announced our partnership to create an international hub for innovation. The partnership entails a 3-year commit-ment to the development of Torino as an international ecosystem for innovation and establishment as a successful innovation model throughout Italy and Europe.
    
Through this effort, the partners will bring a series of innovation and entrepreneur-ship-focused events and programming to the region during 2019, 2020 and 2021, with the goal of building new opportunities for Italian and European entrepreneurs. These initiatives will further develop and activate the Torino ecosystem, particularly through the OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni innovation hub, a historic building re-cently transformed by Fondazione CRT into a center of excellence for contemporary culture and innovation.

The partners together will bring the following activations to the Torino community:
    
? Techstars Startup Week Torino powered by OGR - a four-day celebration of the region's innovation and startup ecosystem. Free, available to all inter-ested parties, and hosted at OGR – the newly renovated hub for collaborative creativity and startups – Startup Week attendees will learn from and connect with local entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, investors, and other innovation leaders. The event is expecting over 400 local, national and international at-tendees and will take place June 25-28, 2019.

? Techstars Summit 2019 - a week-long global summit bringing together founders, corporate leaders, mentors, investors, and others. A three-track event, Techstars Summit will join what previously existed as three separate events across different countries - Techstars FounderCon, Techstars Partner Summit and Techstars Ecosystem Summit - into one experience in Torino spanning the week of September 22-26. Techstars Summit will bring key stakeholders and thought leaders across the Techstars worldwide network to-gether for one week of connections, discussions, and learnings in Torino.

? Techstars Smart Mobility Accelerator - a new Torino-based accelerator program to be held at OGR, that will focus on smart mobility. Concentrated on smart infrastructure and smart cities, the accelerator will attract and source startups from across the globe. Recruitment will begin in July 2019 with the program set to announce its first class of startups in Q1 2020.

“Techstars profoundly believes that mentorship and entrepreneurship are key factors that power the future of any community. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for Techstars to help facilitate lasting global connections in Torino” said Jenny Lawton, Techstars Chief Operating Officer. “By partnering with Compagnia Di San Paolo, Fondazione CRT and Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center, we are supporting the de-velopment of the innovation ecosystem in Torino and across Italy. We’re inspired by our partners' vision, and the commitment and resources they are bringing to the ta-ble for this initiative. Our shared efforts will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on the growth and development of the Torino community and their entrepreneurial ecosys-tem.

“We are accelerating and consolidating our support for the local and national innova-tion chain” emphasises Alberto Anfossi, Secretary General of Compagnia di San Paolo. “We intend to be drivers in developing high impact innovation processes, in-cluding those of a social nature. To this end we have set our whole system of com-petence and knowledge into motion, benefitting from our close collaboration with academies and research bodies. In this way innovation takes on a holistic aspect in which the collaboration between institutions brings about increasingly significant re-sults. In this perspective, the Techstars brand and model makes it possible to blend the joint commitment of three great institutions in favour of a strategy that reposi-tions our territory to one of strong innovation”.

“The partnership that begins today with Techstars joins those that have been signed over the last twelve months, to strengthen the vision of the new OGR Tech space as a gateway to global excellence and as an epicenter of a new international ecosystem dedicated to tech and business innovation,” declares Massimo Lapucci, Secretary General of Fondazione CRT and Managing Director of OGR. “But this is only the beginning, in September, Techstars will organize the Techstars Summit with us here in Turin - for the first time concentrated in one single city - bringing to the OGR the best of its global network of entrepreneurs, corporate partners and institutional ac-tors. Today, a series of activities will begin for the next three-years, including an ac-celerator program on Smart Mobility, landing for the first time in Italy at the OGR. This European exclusive with Techstars is in partnership with Intesa Sanpaolo Inno-vation Center and Compagnia di San Paolo. Our international program will generate a strong impact for the support and development of entrepreneurial talent and excel-lence".

“Innovation is a key element for supporting the country's economy”, said Maurizio Montagnese, Chairman at Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center. “Our Group has long been committed to promoting the growth of this ecosystem, which is increasing-ly central to the development of Italian businesses. The countries with a focus on in-novation show greater GDP growth, while in Italy the annual capital requirement per startup is estimated at around one billion euro, 75% of which is not covered by spe-cialized operators and by the financial segment. This partnership, which is the result of the careful and strategic vision typical of banking Foundations, pursues the dual objective of making the city of Turin an international innovation hub and acting as a stimulus for the new economy of the country, thereby increasing networking be-tween universities and businesses, young people and investors”.

About Techstars
Techstars is the worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed. Techstars founders connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporations to grow their companies. Techstars operates three divisions: Techstars Startup Programs, Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelera-tor Programs, and Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships. Techstars acceler-ator portfolio includes more than 1,700 companies with a market cap of $20 Billion.
www.techstars.com

About Compagnia di San Paolo
Compagnia di San Paolo is one of Europe’s most important private foundations. Since 1992 it has granted almost € 3 billion to the territory in the areas of research and higher education, social policies, health, artistic heritage and cultural activities. Founded in 1563 and now a philanthropic agent of development even through its In-strumental Bodies, it is a hub of knowledge and competence, services and policies for projects focused on people and territories of reference.
www.compagniadisanpaolo.it

About Fondazione CRT
Fondazione CRT is a private non-profit organization founded in 1991. It is one of the "engines" of development and growth in Piedmont and the Aosta Valley in three main areas: Research & Education, Art and Culture, Welfare and Territory. In 27 years of activity, Fondazione CRT has distributed resources totalling around 1.6 bil-lion euro, which has permitted the realisation of over 39,000 interventions. Further-more, with a budget of 100 million euros, Fondazione CRT has completely restored the OGR. Fondazione CRT is present in international networks of philanthropy, with-in the EFC (European Foundation Centre) and the EVPA (European Venture Philan-thropy Association), and it implements projects in collaboration with international or-ganisations including the United Nations.
www.fondazionecrt.it

About Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center
The mission Intesa Sanpaolo Innovation Center lies in the research and analysis of innovative solutions in order to identify growth opportunities for our Group and cus-tomers. The Center, established in 2014, has the task of monitoring the Group’s in-novation development plans and processes. With a central office on the 31st floor of Turin's skyscraper, the headquarters of the Group, and a national and international network, the Innovation Center aims to be an enabling driver of relationships with other stakeholders in the innovation ecosystem, such as businesses, start-ups, in-cubators, research centres and universities. In addition, it promotes new forms of entrepreneurship in accessing risk capital. Innovation is at the core of the company's evolution. For the Intesa Sanpaolo Group, innovation is a lever for competing in markets that are increasingly more complex and globalised.
About OGR
The OGR of Torino is a former railway workshops built in the nineteenth century on an area of 35,000 square meters, the OGR have been entirely redeveloped by Fondazione CRT with over 100 million euro and reborn on 30 September 2017 as workshops of ideas, creativity and innovation: a place open to the world for artistic experimentation, scientific, technological and industrial research, as well as food. In 2019 they will increasingly serve as an international innovation hub, with spaces for business accelerators, research laboratories and a Big Data centre. They will also become the Italian "home" to BEST, the bilateral ItalyUS programme designed to promote high-tech entrepreneurial culture in our country, with the aim of building a bridge between Silicon Valley and Torino.
www.ogrtorino.it

 

Techstars Media Contact:
Jonathan Greene
jonathan.Greene@techstars.com
+1 9175603000

Compagnia Di San Paolo Media Contact:
Francesca Corsico 
francesca.corsico@compagniadisanpaolo.it
+39 011 5596937 / +39 3333869911 

Fondazione CRT Media Contact:
Laura Opalio
laura_opalio@fondazionecrt.it
+39  011 5065390 / +39 3371451802

Intesa Sanpaolo Media Contact:
stampa@intesasanpaolo.com
+39 02 87962052
www.intesasanpaolo.com/it/news.html

OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni Media Contact:
Laura Cavallari 
laura.cavallari@ogrtorino.it
+39 011 0247208 / +39 3518071637