The winner
Winning first prize in the Cities Challenge contest in Italy means that Cava De’Tirreni now has the chance to rub shoulders with the world’s leading entrepreneurial experts at the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain
Cava De‘Tirreni is a small town in the South of Italy, in the province of Salerno. With an economy strongly rooted in the tourism, since last week its 54,000 inhabitants can boast proudly of belonging to the most entrepreneurial city of Italy in 2019. This year the cava is for them.
Cava De’Tirreni won first place in META Group’s Cities Challenges contest, which pits Italian cities against each other to compete for the coveted title of the most entrepreneurial city. Second place went to the city of Novara, and third place to the city of Ferrara. Cava De’Tirreni will now travel to the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain where they can learn from leading minds in the field, and take home ideas to build on their progress and become even more innovative and entrepreneurial as a city.
“We have a truly dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem aimed at innovation, but without forgetting the tradition of our craftsmen and our traditional companies.” – said Eugenio Canora, Cava De’Tirreni’s counsellor, at the final pitch event held in Rome the last Friday 5th of April.
Cava De’Tirreni is living through “a transition that perceives changes, between craftsmanship and biological laboratory, incubators and companies, training hub and digital revolution,” explained Eugenio Canora during his speech, and he showcased two incubators in the city proudly, “one for digital manufacturing and the other for sustainable environmental ideas.”
Cities Challenge Italy is the first competition to reward the entrepreneurial capacity of a city and its ecosystem.
Organized in collaboration with Gen Global Italy, StartupItalia!, Tree, Italia Startup, Iban, ItaliaCamp and Starboost, it focuses specifically on encouraging midsized cities (50,000-250,000 inhabitants) to create an innovation-friendly environment to generate new business ideas, improve on existing ones, and attract people and capital.
The winner is chosen thanks to a combination of the popular vote (20%), the submitted documentation (50%) and the final pitch (30%), and will travel to Bahrain to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress on 15-18 of April 2019.
How did it work?
The contest is divided into 5 phases
1 – Application collection
Any citizen interested could submit an application on behalf of their city, after registering at www.citieschallenge.eu. META Group, who is the coordinator of the contest, sent these proposals to the mayor of the relevant city, who then submitted the official formal application.
2 – Selection of finalists
After the applications were collected, they were evaluated by a jury of experts, which chose the finalist cities.
3 – Public vote
For a set period of time, Italian citizens could vote for whichever city, among the finalists, they consider to be the most entrepreneurial of Italy.
4 – Final pitching event
Representatives of the finalist cities made a 5-minute pitch (presenting the city) in front of a jury, with the aim of demonstrating the importance and effectiveness of the entrepreneurial ecosystem of their city.
5 – Presentation to GEC
The winner now has the opportunity to attend the Global Entrepreneurship Congress event and present his/her city. GEC 2019 will be held in Bahrein on 15-18 of April.
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