The first call to access the Smart Lab Incubator was closed few days ago and it was a great success. The Smart Lab is a new space for innovative companies promoted by Città della Scienza within the European project KiiCS.

There were presented 35 new business ideas promoted by people interested in entering the system of Città della Scienza. They will have the opportunity to be followed in a 6 months process to develop in details their business ideas and open it to the market.

The main theme of the Call is the promotion of Smart Cities, seen as the possibility to develop new products and services to better citizens’ quality of life. The sectors that have seen the greatest number of applications are environmental sustainability, web 2.0 and design products. As concerns the latter, very important for the scouting process was the collaboration with: Accademia delle Belle Arti of Naples, Plart – the Museum of Fine Arts and the Department of Industrial Design of the Second University of Naples.

Regarding the participants’ profile, there was almost the same percentage of participants between men and women and a very high percentage of under 35 which reaches about 70% of the applications received.

During next month of February, projects presented will be analyzed in detail through individual interviews.

Among the ideas, you will find : bike sharing, the development of apps for travel services, clothing products with innovative design, the FabLab creative workshops and those involved in visual communication. The President of Città della Scienza Vittorio Silvestrini commented the result of the call as follow : < It was very interesting for us to note that the average age of “possible future entrepreneurs” is below the age of 25, indicating that the younger generations are clearly the maker of their own destiny. A few projects were presented by former workers who have lost their jobs and have rolled up their sleeves leveraging ” creativity “and” knowledge “, the two key words that constitute a possible and probable way out of the worrying situation in which our country finds itself>.

The projects presented will continue in February to arrive by the end of March to the selection of the best six ideas that will be incubated in the Smart Lab Incubator. The top two winners, will compete with their European counterparts, in a competition that will decide the KiiiCS company’s project more innovative.

The call remains open door, and the next selection of ideas will take place in two months.