The Bologna Technopole is hosting the AInnovation Startup Contest 2026, an initiative promoted by IEEE Italy Section and dedicated to startups and early-stage teams engaged in the development of solutions based on artificial intelligence and emerging technologies. The event was opened by Giambattista Gruosso, president of IEEE Italy Section, Marco Giordani, chair of IEEE Italy Section entrepreneurship committee, Matteo Ciotola, chair of Young Professionals Italy, and Vincenzo Colla, vice president of the Emilia-Romagna Region, who illustrated the investments made by the Region, the Italian State and Europe in the DAMA centre (Tecnopolo Data Manifattura Emilia-Romagna).
The event is designed to connect academia, industry and new technological entrepreneurship, showing how AI is no longer a promise, but a real strategic infrastructure. Bologna thus confirms its status as an important national hub for innovation, a place where research and the market engage in dialogue without rhetoric.
IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, is the world’s largest technical and scientific organisation. It has over 400,000 members in more than 160 countries and is one of the places where standards, research, technologies and visions are born that then become marketable: from artificial intelligence to energy, from robotics to sustainability, to digital healthcare. IEEE is not just about academic research. In recent years, it has become an increasingly concrete bridge between technology, business and innovation, with programmes dedicated to start-ups, technological entrepreneurship and the transfer of value to the market.
Academics, entrepreneurs, researchers, mentors, investors and professionals from various regions of Italy contributed to the event, including presentations by Cecilia Metra, Professor of Electronics at the University of Bologna, and Alessandra Micozzi, Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Professor of Applied Economics at Mercatorum University, who offered a complementary perspective: technology and economic models, research and sustainability.
The discussion was not limited to algorithms, but also addressed industrial responsibility. It covered not only deep tech, but also scalability and impact. The finalist start-ups presented solutions applied to healthcare, robotics, energy, sustainability, intelligent systems, and advanced technologies. Fifty start-ups applied, including those selected for the final in Bologna, in order of presentation: for the ‘Start-up Category’: Daidalos, Surgical SenseAI, Lemonjuice Solutions S.r.l., DR-I SRL and for the ‘Start-up PreIncubation’ category: Coralia Tech, Skymule, AtenAI, DeepBreath.
The winning start-up among those selected in the Start-up Category was Daidalos, which aims to develop processors. In the Start-up Pre-Incubator Category, the winner was AtenAI, which applies artificial intelligence to workplace safety. In the Sustainable Innovation Idea or Product Category, the winner was DeepBreath, which has a project to apply artificial intelligence to monitoring children to ensure their safety in all contexts.
The discussion with the jury was direct, technical and market-oriented, thanks to the expertise of the jurors: Giambattista Gruosso, chair of IEEE Italy Section and Politecnico di Milano; Marco Giordani, chair of IEEE Italy Section entrepreneurship committee and University of Padua; Tiziana Tambosso, industry relations coordinator IEEE Italy, Matteo Ciotola, chair Young professionals Italy and Federico II University, Agnese Sbrollini Marche Polytechnic University, Francesca Marasciuolo and Cosimo Iurlaro Bari Polytechnic University, Vittorio Stile IEEE senior member, expert in big data and AI and Mercatorum University, Giuseppe Guarino INRAE – Université de Montpellier, Alberto Villani, University of Siena, Simone Betteti, AI4I – IEEE entrepreneurship committee, Francesca Razzano, Parthenope University.
Among the opportunities available to participating start-ups are international visibility, the chance to represent Italy at IEEE Region 8 Entrepreneurship Week, access to cutting-edge infrastructure such as CINECA’s Leonardo supercomputer, one of the most powerful HPC platforms in Europe, and potential collaborations with the various project partners.
The event, organised under the patronage of the Emilia-Romagna Region, with institutional greetings from Vice-President Vincenzo Colla, confirms a strategic fact: innovation is not a one-off event, but a process that requires coordination between universities, businesses and institutions.
With over 400,000 members worldwide, IEEE is now one of the leading global technical and scientific organisations, and the AInnovation Startup Contest 2026 is part of a trajectory aimed at making artificial intelligence a shared responsibility between research, business and society.
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