Basilicata Open LAB is launched, the Lucanian innovation community

Basilicata Open Lab is a development project for the Basilicata region, which includes a series of initiatives focused on energy transition, sustainability and circular economy. The target is to create real value in this part of southern Italy by bringing together public and private associations and companies from the region also known as Lucania.
The project builds on previous experience in the field of agricultural enterprise development (South Up and Basilicata Pitch2Pitch) and has four areas of development:

• Sustainable agriculture and Agritech;
• Economic diversification and local development;
• Circular Bio-Economy and Agro-Energy;
• Hydrogen, sustainable mobility, renewables;

The creation of a physical hub is essential to the development of a true Lucanian community, made up of companies, budding entrepreneurs, professionals and the institutional world. While the digital platform, which is already online, is an invaluable tool to keep up to date with all the events in the programme and the development of the ecosystem. Furthermore, it will soon be possible to book meetings with community professionals, access the mentoring training programme (which can be used both synchronously and asynchronously) and training infobytes and content.

Call4Innovation is the other part of the project, which aims to identify and support innovative and sustainable business projects in the fields of energy, agriculture, construction and mobility that can be tested and developed in the Basilicata region. In particular, thanks to the call, the following will be carried out: co-innovation activities with Lucanian companies and teams of innovators from across Italy; implementation of innovative business projects presented by Lucanian companies.
For each edition, 12 local companies will be supported through training and mentoring activities; 9 grants will be awarded with a total annual budget of €240,000, divided into 6 grants for co-innovation schemes (€30,000 each) and 3 grants (€20,000 each) for the incubation of new business projects.
The project is being implemented by Eni with the support of Shell Italia E&P through Joule, the Eni School of Entrepreneurship and with partners PoliHub and the ELIS Consortium.

"Basilicata Open LAB", explains Mattia Voltaggio, Head of Joule, the Eni School of Entrepreneurship, "is the result of the evolution of previous entrepreneurial development projects run by our business school in Basilicata. This means that the work done so far has been recognised by the region, and we now want to capitalise on this experience and extend the scope of activities to other innovation perimeters.”

For Enrico Deluchi, CEO of PoliHub, “innovating means breaking away from traditional models and taking the risk of going off the beaten track. As part of the Basilicata OpenLAB programme, PoliHub helps entrepreneurs to innovate by playing the role of risk mitigator, both for the startups that we involve as carriers of technological solutions to be launched on the market, and for the Lucanian companies that have told us what they need. This approach, developed with Eni Joule, is itself an innovation that we have called the regional Venture Client. Over the past few years, we have shown how it is possible to involve the economic and entrepreneurial fabric of a region, making the most of its traditional skills and resources to implement processes capable of providing startups and innovators with space and skills useful for testing their solutions.

ELIS Head of Strategy and Innovation, Luciano De Propris
, says that "ELIS could not fail to be involved in a programme like Basilicata Open LAB. It is the largest consortium of companies active since 1992, and over the years it has created an ecosystem aimed at promoting projects of innovation, social impact and regional development. The commitment will be to create or strengthen links between Lucanian businesses, young people and professionals who want to turn an idea into reality and develop it in their local area.”