The new program, due for start, offers to 120 companies the chance to strengthen their technical, management and financial skills in order to help them face new markets – with particular attention paid to ICT, automotive & robotics, medtech, and circular economy segments. Internships and incubator training courses planned in China, Japan, South Korea, Slovenia, USA, and the UK.
MILAN, Mar 19 (Class Editori) – The Global Start-up Program is an integrated development route for innovative, patent-holder start-ups yet to leave national ground, and comes as the culmination of a joint action between the MISE, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, and the ICE, the Italian Chamber of Foreign Commerce. The initiative, which aims at helping these Italian business realities approach foreign markets, offers management training, English language courses, and internships abroad in the context of specific business incubators. The initiative's essential requirement for access is holding rights to a product or a service with potential for development on the international market. In particular, the new program is open to 120 innovative Italian start-ups wishing to strengthen their technical, management and financial skills, with a view to approach new markets, and paying special attention to ICT, automotive & robotics, medtech, and circular economy segments.
All interested start-ups have until April 5th, 2019, to fill in the relevant online form, available from the official ICE website, and to submit their application in accordance with the instructions contained in the public participation notice – published on March 6th, 2019, and financed through the funds of the Made in Italy Extraordinary Plan.
The abroad development route is comprised of 2 stages.
During the first one, the selected start-ups will take part in a specialization course, free of charge and taught in English, and will focus on technical and management skill implementation and strengthening – looking in particular at international scale-up, intellectual property, and project work. The second part of the program will offer internships abroad, in order to provide highly practical training experiences in start-up management. The placements will last from 3 to 6 months, will come with financial support, and will take place at selected incubator realities in focus countries – the UK, the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Slovenia. Furthermore, selected candidates will also be offered a preparatory English language course in four different locations across Italy. The initiative does not require any admission fees. The first stage will be classroom-based and offered in four rounds, expected to end in May 2019. Accordingly, the courses will take place in four different Italian cities, to be later identified based on the participants' geographical distribution – but possibly interesting one city in the north, one in the center, one in the south, and one on the islands (Sicily and Sardinia).
After the conclusion of the training, interested start-ups will be able to move on to the internship abroad, where their location will be selected based on the participants' geographical preferences, specified during the application process, and on the hosting incubators' preferred businesses for collaboration. Selected start-ups must engage in all stages of the program, with particular attention to the first part – where they must attend at least 80% of all lessons and courses.
The start-ups must be patent holders and in activity for less than 5 years. The public notice lists all specific requirements that they must possess by the application closing date. First of all, they must be registered by and active with a CCIAA (specific Italian chambers of commerce), thus holding all the mandatory requirements specified by the relevant legislation regarding innovative start-up businesses. Further to this, they must have been in activity for less than 5 years, and must hold a registered and deposited patent, or a software with copyrights. They must also be in line with current tax, welfare and social security regulations, as well as with the ICE Agency. They must not be in a state of bankruptcy, liquidation, or controlled administration. Finally, the participants must prove to possess those necessary requirements directly connected to internationalization projects – in particular, they must hold internationalization potential, that is the ability to open towards foreign markets, and must be able to answer back foreign partners through electronic responses (e.g. an email) in at least one foreign language. Finally, the participant and the auditor must self-certify for C1 English language.
All contributions are paid under the de minimis scheme. All expenses, including food and transport abroad, will qualify for reimbursement when sustained after the admission date, while participants will also be entitled to a 20% flat-rate refund of total reported expenses. Participation to the highly practical specialist training, focused on start-up management, is free. In regard to the internship abroad, the selected start-ups will receive a 14-thousand-euro contribution in two ways – ICE's direct intervention, covering accommodation, transfer (including a return economy flight) and parking costs for the three months; plus a 7-thousand-euro fund covering the start-up representative's other expenses sustained abroad, dispensed in two installments (50% each). 20% of total funds will be non-repayable, and distributed in accordance with Regulation (EU) No. 1407/2013 regarding the de minimis scheme.
Preferential criteria in start-up selection are: if less than 120, applications will be taken into consideration according to chronological reception; in the presence of more than 120 candidates, an evaluation commission will be appointed ad-hoc and will look for specific preferential criteria. First, an advantage goes to start-ups active in the following sectors: ICT (with preference for block-chain, artificial intelligence, cyber security, industry 4.0, fintech); automotive & robotics (with preference for batteries and electric cars, autonomous driving, future mobility, mobility apps such as car sharing and related web services); medtech (with preference for medical equipment and apps, life sciences); and, finally, circular economy (with preference for low carbon emissions, innovative materials, plastic substitutes). Other distinguishing factors are: presence of seed capital, or being incubated or entrusted to a bank/financial firm; owning intellectual property rights different from a patent; having developed a product with foreign market potential in the target countries. Finally, another discriminator is the willingness to reinvest or to confer results of foreign acceleration toward Italy or toward an Italian company. The list of selected start-ups will be published on the ICE Agency website, while an individual communication will also be sent out to all admitted participants, including the copy of the regulations they will need to sign in order to accept.
(Source:Class Editori)
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