"The innovation ecosystem needs a link to industry"

"Turin has a lively technology and innovation sector, it has been the European Capital of Innovation, there is ferment on the subject of industrial technology and the technology industry in particular, and this is coming from the world of start-ups and the innovation ecosystem, which in this city, I can say, is beginning to be robustly present,' is the analysis of Marco Gay, president of Turin's industrialists and, as an entrepreneur, executive chairman and partner of Zest, a European player focused on supporting innovation and a leader in early-stage & seed funding, start-up acceleration, Open Innovation and Corporate Venturing.

"Manufacturing,' he adds, 'is closely linked to our ability to innovate, just as the restart of certain industrial sectors is closely linked to the fact that there is innovation here. Overcoming, therefore, the atavistic clash and confrontation between the factory and technology, industry and services. "A narrative that has been overtaken by what is happening and Turin effectively represents the combination of these two worlds,' says Gay.

There are those who see Turin as a place where you have industry, the Polytechnic and the Universities, many acceleration and incubation activities, places and spaces where knowledge and technology are at home. The mix is represented by the presence of people who develop innovation in research, by start-ups that may not come from research but find here that ecosystem on which to grow, and finally by industry that offers the possibility of downloading innovation and technology transfer to the ground. All this, in an area where capital and venture capital investments are beginning to move and be present.

Yes, but the Ogr Tech, the presence of funds setting up and investors, Zest itself investing in the area with two acceleration programmes and growing over time. These are important points of reference in an ecosystem that is growing. I am talking about a liveliness that makes it possible to have many realities in the city today, even if not large ones, that contribute to a process and that make one think: "It is happening in Turin". Of course, there are those who say that there could be larger, more concentrated realities, but the fact that there is such a liveliness, that initiatives are being created, increasingly concrete experiments, is really an added value.

Yes, starting from the fact that it is an objectively welcoming city also because it is an industrial and cultural melting pot. Turin's vibrancy is perhaps not so visible from the outside, because it is not emphatically communicated. Also because this is an area that has the weight of a struggling metal industry, linked to the automotive world.