Tag Archives: Veneto Nanotech

Contest for best business ideas: Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge 2012

With a prize of 600,000 Euros in a competition that’s been opened to anyone in the world, you may want to give this a look. From the May 31, 2012 news item on Nanowerk (Note: I have removed a link),

Nanochallenge and Polymerchallenge is the unique international business plan competition, completely focused on nanotechnology and polymer-based materials. It awards one of the largest worldwide prizes for the creation of new high tech enterprises.

600.000 Euro are at stake for this year 8th contest.

Just like previous years, the Competition is open to inventors, students, Phd, scientists, researchers and to start ups with less than three years of life. Participants are supposed to present a business project featuring breakthrough innovation in nanotechnology and polymer-based material.

You can find more details about applying on the 2012 NanoChallenge and Polymerchallenge website.  If I read the home page rightly, you will be expected, if successful, to locate your startup in Italy,

Since 2005 Nanochallenge rewards the best international startup projects in nanotechnology, uncovering breakthrough nanotechnology applications and attracting the best entrepreneurial talents, in order to give them the actual opportunity to create a startup.

Nanochallenge is an international business plan competition organized by Veneto Nanotech, the Italian Cluster of Nanotechnology and, since 2007, by IMAST, Technological District on polymeric and composite materials engineering and structures.

Veneto Nanotech and IMAST aim at attracting the best nanotechnology innovations / polymer-based materials applications and business ideas in the Clusters, offering financial and strategic support to scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs ready to start a real company.

The new entrepreneurs have access to our facilities, labs, instruments and financial network to develop their technologies and products. This helps them speed the development phase and enter the market.

Good luck to anyone who chooses to enter. The first deadline (register online and submit an executive summary) is July 19,  2012.

When commercializing nano, forget nano

The news out of Europe is that when commercializing a nanotechnology-enabled product, you don’t need to mention the ‘nano’.  From the Nov. 14, 2011 news item on Nanowerk,

Businesses in the nanotechnology field may even forget the word nano. To secure success they have to focus on solving customers’ problem and better communicate business opportunities that nanotechnologies may bring.

These are key insights from two EC funded initiatives, ProNano and NanoCom, which are joining their forces to tackle the issue of barriers to the commercialisation of European nanotechnologies. The two projects are different in scope, approach and methods. The former provides coaching and advise to research teams on their route to commercialisation, the latter will ultimately provide a roadmap and policy guidelines to support commercialisation of nanotechnology research.

But what does this actually mean for researchers in the nano field, who want to approach the market? We asked this question to Mr. Enzo Sisti from Veneto Nanotech, an organisation that manages the activities of the nanotechnology sector in the Veneto region in Italy.

According to Mr Sisti, the need to identify a proper business model is especially important whenever the outputs of nanotechnology research provide incremental improvement to existing products rather than create entirely new ones. If potential customers have a system or product that works, they can be reluctant to change, unless the benefits and value are clearly demonstrated. In such situations, nano businesses need to identify and propose a “window of acceptability”, based on technical parameters as well as on price competitiveness. Still too often, Sisti says, the focus of researchers is on technology only and not on problem solving in a customer’s perspective. It is, instead, important to provide sound and proved benchmarks on the cost/benefits that may incur form the adoption of innovation.

Sisti’s comments certainly suggest one approach to marketing but they imply that there’s nothing disruptive about adopting a new technology.