ROMA, 26 MAY 2021

Start-ups, MOVYON and Elis launch the ARGO Innovation Lab project

Its target are innovative enterprises, universities and research centres, for the purpose of developing technological solutions for safe infrastructures and sustainable mobility, within an open innovation framework.

Argo Innovation Lab is now online; it is a platform promoted by MOVYON and ELIS Innovation HUB, involving universities, research centres of groups, start-ups and enterprises, aimed at developing ideas and projects for technological solutions, in the area of sustainable mobility and safety of infrastructures.

Anyone wishing to join is invited to suggest project ideas on the subject of monitoring, design and maintenance, safety and security of the motorway network and environmental sustainability; models designed to forecast, study and manage data, performance, surveillance and organisation of worksites. The project is expected to cover the innovation requirements of the group Autostrade per l’Italia, creating concrete opportunities from an open innovation perspective which will allow for systematising the best results in research at national level. The challenges will be shared in a call for ideas which will allow MOVYON to select proposals and talents. During the first stage of the programme, scheduled to last until 12 July 2021, the platform will collect applications; a quality panel will then choose the best proposals to be developed in two phases: four months to produce prototypes and feasibility studies, then eight months for their possible field experimentation.

MOVYON, the technological spin-off of Autostrade per l’Italia, will serve as “incubator” within this framework, accompanying the selected centres in implementing ideas on the ground and – if necessary – providing financial support in terms of project development. It will also make available for their experimentation the largest open-air lab in Europe: the three thousand kilometres of motorway network managed by Aspi.

ELIS Innovation Hub will manage the project through a dedicated technological platform, encouraging stakeholder involvement; moreover, it will support research and development projects, making available heterogeneous working teams, availing themselves of the experience accrued through the partnership between the corporate and start-up world during the four editions of OPEN ITALY, the Open & Collaborative Innovation programme of the ELIS Consortium.

“This initiative – says Lorenzo Rossi, CEO at MOVYON – fully reflects the spirit and objectives of our company. We actually believe in an open and proactive innovation culture, which should offer added value for the community, in partnership with universities, research centres, incubators and the best talents which every day product ideas and solutions, working together on their field experimentation. These are fundamental requirements for the future of sustainability and of MOVYON; they are the basis of Argo Innovation Lab. We support talents, produce sustainable innovation, build the future of our country”.

“At ELIS Innovation Hub we develop innovation and corporate consulting projects based on a cooperation approach which results in a true synergy between large companies, start-ups, universities and young people”, says Luigi de Costanzo, director of ELIS Innovation Hub. “Every day we set ourselves the goal of serving as a meeting point, of helping experiment with ideas for new growth opportunities which will contribute to the country’s economic and social progress through the potential of new technologies, the competence of ELIS consultants, plus the enthusiasm of young staff. This project, which we are conducting alongside MOVYON, pursues the route to innovation areas which the country needs to be implemented in a concrete and sustainable way”.

If you wish to register, go to

https://www.argoinnovationlab.com