Our experience as "Women in Tech"
Friday 29 April 2022
Five founders of the 20 startups and scaleups participating in the Value Track for Women in Tech program, organized by UniCredit Start Lab, have chosen to tell One UniCredit the main strength of their experience. What emerges is a story full of motivation, but also of increased awareness of the value of the She-Tech factor in Italy.
The Value Track for Women in Tech project, organised by UniCredit Start Lab to expand and enhance the contribution of 20 female-led start-ups and scale-ups in the Italian innovation ecosystem, came to an end on 12th April.
The focus of the last event was on networking with players and investors interested in innovation. The female entrepreneurs had the opportunity to meet 12 partners in the program, for a total of 33 in-depth meetings. This was an important opportunity to accelerate their growth in Tech, a sector in which the role of female leaders is growing in Italy.
Anna Impedovo is leading ISAAC as Co-Founder & COO/CHRO. She is an innovative startup leader who has designed, patented and developed a system (I-Pro 1) for the seismic protection of existing buildings through smart and innovative technologies. The system is standard and non-invasive as it is installed on the top floor of the structure.
Value Track for Women in Tech", commented Anna, "has been an opportunity for me to learn from theory to practice. I had the pleasure of learning the importance of mistakes and failures as a starting point to improve the strategy in growth, in line with the philosophy of "growth mindset". Moreover, this track gave me the opportunity to meet great digital marketing professionals, to understand how to best align digital communication with the strategic objectives of our business.
Francesca Rizzi & Anna Zattoni are respectively CEO and President, as well as Co-Founder,of Jointly, a benefit company founded in 2014 to help people find the best care and assistance solutions for themselves and their families in order to meet their needs in the fastest, cheapest and most reliable way. Jointly has created a marketplace with over 100,000 services available in Italy and accessible to the employees of 900 large and small business clients.
"Among the strengths of the path undertaken," they commented, "we would like to highlight two of them above all: the possibility of being in a group of talented female entrepreneurs, with ideas that have now become solid companies, promoters of a vision of the world of work that is increasingly sustainable. Sharing experiences, but above all questions and doubts, is an added value, always. As was also the opportunity to meet with experts in various sectors: from meetings with investors, to one-to-one meetings with Luca La Mesa's team, we were able to conduct a more in-depth analysis of our digital channels".
Marta Pisani is Co-Founder & COO of Green Independence, a company that wants to decentralise the production and storage of green energy through NAL (new artificial leaf), a new generation photovoltaic panel that works just like a leaf: it stores solar energy producing green H2, recycles CO2 emissions and purifies wastewater, in a completely grid-independent way.
"What I take home from UniCredit's Value Track for Women in Tech is the energy and determination of so many women who, like me, are pursuing an important project: knowing that you are not a rare species is a great incentive to persevere towards your goals. 'Being aware that trends are changing,' Marta says, 'is a source of hope for a world in which more and more women can pull their weight. In Europe there is still a long way to go in this sense and that's why programs like UniCredit's are essential to give space and tools to all women with an entrepreneurial dream.
Antonella Santoro is the CEO of Nuvap, an Italian startup founded in 2014 by Francesco Rapetti Mogol and Marco Magnarosa, which deals with indoor pollution and promotes people's health and the healthiness of work, study and living environments. Nuvap's solutions make it possible to monitor, assess and communicate indoor environmental healthiness in a simple and in-depth way, considering multiple environmental parameters, including many chemical and physical pollutants, including formaldehyde, electrosmog and radon gas.
"Like all UniCredit Start Lab initiatives I have participated in, Value Track for Women in Tech was full of content, brought to us by outstanding and extremely generous professionals. There was no rhetoric in addressing the issue of female entrepreneurship,' says Antonella. 'The discussions with investors were open and valuable. The Start Lab team is very attentive, the timing of the plenary and individual sessions was perfect."