Feature: Italy-China Innovation Week in Naples spotlights start-ups, creative talents

Along with infrastructures, strategic policies, and businesses engagement, innovation in technological and scientific research have become a key factor in the global striving for inclusive and sustainable development.

This awareness was almost palpable at the City of Science in Naples among a crowd of researchers, start-uppers, investors, business incubators, and authorities.

Some 1,000 Italian delegates and 500 Chinese counterparts from 700 private and public entities gathered in the southern Italian city for the 7th edition of Italy-China Science, Technology, and Innovation Week opening on Wednesday.

The event, devoted at the cooperation between Italy and China in these sectors, aimed at boosting further research and business partnerships.

Naples' session offered panels of experts from the two countries' universities and research centers, seminars on innovative discoveries, some 600 B2B meetings between start-ups and potential sponsors, and the launch of new bilateral initiatives.

A new key event called "Italy-China Best Start-ups Showcase" particularly spotlighted innovative and creative talents.

Some 22 market-proven start-ups were selected from Italy and China, and given the chance to show their projects at the showcase, explain the potential of their ideas, and seek both a mutual exchange with fellow talents and the interest of financial operators and potential investors.

The start-ups spanned most various topics: smart cities, aerospace, design, clean energy, and also sustainable mobility, health science, bio-agriculture, engineering design, tourism and education, among others.

One of them was Cyber Dyne, a start-up born in Italy's southern region of Pulia in 2011, and specialized in computer-aided engineering (CAE).

Founders Ernesto Mininno, 37, and Giovanni Iacca, 34, both engineering researchers, developed a new platform for multi-disciplinary and multi-objective optimization, whose chief application was currently in engineering design.

"Out software, or platform, Kimeme helps engineers design more easily," Mininno told Xinhua, after presenting their start-up at the Showcase.

"Basically, it interacts with all the other software engineers commonly use for designing. It is able to dialogue with each one of them, and also automatize the dialogue between them," he explained.

According to its inventor, Kimeme would make engineer design easier and faster. The engineer will need to tell the platform which sequence of passage between software is required, and the platform would automatize it.

"Plus, after working for a while on the suggested sequence, Kimeme is able to learn the process because it is an artificial intelligence software," Mininno added.

"As such, after a while, it will suggest the likely ideal parameters for that specific project."

Many other inventive start-ups were on show. For example, one dealt with flexible solar cells, and another with a smart centralized heating system for detached building.

There were also a new prognostic Kit for leukaemia patients; a technology allowing continuous observation of a single cell or embryo; and another improving the solar light absorption capacity of semi-transparent, plastic, non-toxic panels serving as photovoltaic windows.

The project showed by Yang Liu, PhD with the Research Institute for New Materials Technology

(RINMT) of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, southwest China, dealt with flexible touch display devices.

"Our technology will make flexible touch displays be more flexible, consume less energy, and get a better contrast," Yang told Xinhua.

"Basically, it would make touch displays more reliable, and capable of better performances. Furthermore, we use a green (production) process, which creates less environmental pollution," said Yang.

His team was made of some 15 people, most of whom PhDs from China and the United States, and worked on the project for about 5 years, the researcher said.

He praised cooperation initiatives such as Italy-China Science and Technology Innovation Week as very useful.

"It provides a great environment where to meet fellow researchers, colleague with different backgrounds, and also potential investors interested in new technologies," he explained.

The Start-Ups Showcase was co-organized by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, the Chinese Institute of Technology Transfer Network (ITTN), and the Italian Association of University Incubators PNI Cube. Endit