ISSNAF (Italian Scientists and Scholars in North America Foundation) is the largest network for the promotion of scientific/technological/entrepreneurial cooperation between North America and Italy.
In particular for the latter (entrepreneurship), the fit with MTB’s activities is more than evident. A good number of ISSNAF founding members (i.e. Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli, Pierluigi Zappacosta, etc) are also MTB’s supporters.
I’m excited to communicate that the two organizations have started a formal collaboration. ISSNAF will select, filter and support a substantial number of candidates, mostly young engineers with an entrepreneurial project in mind, to attend the 3-week program of the MTB Startup School in San Francisco.
The first group just graduated from our July session. They got selected from a list of several hundreds candidates who applied.
They joined a pretty diverse group of entrepreneurs.
Here’s the list of projects they worked on and their background:
RISKUP
– Federico Carturan : Riskup (civil engineering) & Alessio Ferluga : Carbon sensor (engineering/architecture)
EYEBOX
– Federica Cecchet : W.A.Y (engineering/architecture) -Andrea Medina (airspace engineer)
PLANN
– Giada Mancuso : Events/Plann (business)
PV heating system
– Luca Molinari : Photo Voltaic heating system (automotive engineering)
In addition to the “usual” eye-opening experience @ startup-school, the group embarked in a substantial networking activity in the valley.
You hear more directly from them shortly (video interviews are coming up).
In the meantime, we are looking forward to meeting the second group of ISSNAF supported startup-schoolers who will join our August session.
Time to pack up your best ideas, can-do attitude and …warm sweaters.