Top Italian business leaders debate emerging technologies at White City

The European House Ambrosetti visited White City to discuss emerging technology trends and digital transformation with Imperial researchers.

Ambrosetti is an Italian-based think-tank and a network of over 300 C-suite technology and business leaders collaborating with international policy makers, experts and entrepreneurs on strategic issues.

The event at the I-HUB brought together a group of senior managers of large Italian corporations to hear about Imperial’s flourishing innovation ecosystem at White City, as well as Imperial’s international collaborations.

Professor David Gann, Vice President for Innovation, opened the event by underlining Imperial’s position as a leader in science and innovation with strong collaborations including 290 EU funded projects between Imperial and Italian research organisations.

This was followed by a presentation from Patrick Murray, Director of Business Development at Imperial College Business School, who outlined the range of open and customised programmes offered by the Business School.

Imperial's innovation ecosystem

Participants heard how the co-location of knowledge-intensive organisations with world-leading Imperial research groups is unleashing a wave of innovation at White City.

Guests were treated to a series of pitches from entrepreneurs to showcase new technologies in bio plastics, bio incubation and digital transformations in fintech and edtech.

These included Imperial alumnus Matteo Maccario, co-founder of Finite, who is developing a material made from desert sand which has similar structural properties to concrete but with less than half the carbon footprint.

Also pitching was Chris Wallis, Research Manager at Polymateria, an innovative plastic waste reduction company based at the White City Incubator. Founded by Imperial alumnus Dr Graham Chapman, Polymateria is a technology licensing company specialising in the development of additives that promote biodegradability in plastics.

Digital transformation 

The evening was rounded off by presentations from Dr Andrei Kirilenko, Director of the Centre for Global Finance and Technology at the Imperial College Business School, who presented on the future of fintech and cryptocurrency, and Michael Curry, co-founder of Avado, a fast-growth Ed Tech company located in the I-Hub on Digital Transformation in Education.

Professor David Gann, Vice President for Innovation, said: “Imperial’s White City Campus boasts a thriving ecosystem of fast-growing technology companies, world leading researchers, entrepreneurs, corporations and higher education partners working alongside each other. We were delighted to welcome Ambrosetti to White City and look forward to the prospect of future opportunities to collaborate and share learning”.

Gianluca Consonni, Partner at TEH-Ambrosetti, said: “Imperial’s redevelopment plan is truly impressive, as are the labs, facilities, and collaborative spaces across the new White City Campus as a whole. It was a great experience to visit White City and it added real value to our program - participants were astonished by the quality of the projects presented to us and the people who guide them.”

Ambrosetti were visiting London on a 3-day innovation business trip to explore future collaborations. The trip also included visits to Cylon, Yoox Net-a Porter, Darktrace, HSBC, The Economist and Deliveroo.