Smau Business: the ICT world approaches the local dimension

After the splendour of the 90’s and the downsizing after the first years of the new century, Smau is looking for a new dimension, reinventing itself as a touring event in 4 stops in addition to Milan: Bari, Brescia, Padua, and Bologna.

Not only is it a new geographic setting for the fair, but also a new approach to the relationship with its own reference market, providing a different, “local” vision. This can allow visitors to learn about new technologies and their application in entrepreneurial, social, and commercial contexts which are linked to a specific area.

Smau stopped in Padua during the first week of May and attracted big vendors, such as IBM, Cisco, Sap, Sony, with their business partner operating in the North-East of Italy. They had the chance to showcase their experiences in a local context, characterized by an entrepreneurial fabric of SMEs, especially in the manufacturing industry.

The event form offered several high-level educational workshops and case studies, divided in the two days of the fair, with free entrance and online pre-registration on Smau’s website.

The leit motiv of this year was linked to innovation issues and in the exhibition halls great importance was given to the area of technological start-ups that were looking for bigger visibility for their proposals and for funding with the help of some venture capitalists.

In this area there was a relevant participation from the University of Padua that presented Start Cube, a University enterprise incubator for newly set up companies to receive services and use the University infrastructures for up to 3 years.
The University also presented some corporate spin-offs, especially in robotics and corporate automation, results of the many years of experience of the Electronics Department in the local college of Engineering.

One more signal of the evolution of times is the availability of the illustrative material of the event in digital form, downloadable here.