The forthcoming edition, thanks to the brand new collaboration with Nana Bianca and Hubble, adds an innovative and technological high-value training, mentorship and support to the acceleration program.

Nowadays, innovation plays a pivotal role in the success of many companies. Up until the 60’s the average tenure of a firm was about 61 years; today this data shrunk to 18 years. In such a context, the most forward-thinking companies are aware of the role and importance of innovation: increasingly often, the most disruptive and winning ideas do not always come from within their businesses, but within smaller, innovative, young entities. Supporting and investing in these companies becomes the keystone of bigger companies’ success, companies able to renew their existing business by adopting a brand new dynamic point of view.
Startups are not seen as a threat, but as a potential partner to add value to society, consumers and industry.

Within this framework of innovation and social value, Estra promotes E-qube, which involves this year an expert partner as Nana Bianca.

"The promotion of E-qube Startup & Idea Challenge confirms, once again, our Group's strong focus on issues such as innovation and entrepreneurial development to build the smart city of the future" states Francesco Macrì, President of Estra.

The initiative targets startups, but also for groups not yet incorporated in joint-stock companies, that intend to carry out product or service development projects of an IT or technological-manufacturing nature, with high innovative potential and commercial development prospects through the network and the digital.

Silvio Agresti, director of the acceleration program of Nana Bianca, stresses how the primary goal is to "open a channel of dialogue between large companies such as Estra and new digital startups. This is particularly important in a context such as the Italian one, where, on the one hand, startups cannot rely on a mature private capital market as in other countries, while on the other hand, large industrial groups are not always able to seize the opportunities of new technologies introduced by startups and to work in a perspective of open innovation "

Sharing&Circular Economy, Smart Cities Solutions, IoT, Energy Efficiency&Mobile, Energy Storage, Retail Energy&Fintech, Mobility, Telecommunications, Machine learning&AI, Marketing&Communications: these are the digital sectors selected for the new edition of E-qube. Those interested in participate may submit their application until September 28th, 2018.