The International Innovation Summit, the digital event which took place online from 28th October to 30th October, 2020, organized by the University of Trieste within the framework of InnovaMare strategic project, has just ended, bringing the attention to the state of health of our seas.
As part of the summit, six panels were held: the morning “TECH” meetings have been designed to encourage the exchange of knowledge between sector’s specialists, highlighting the importance of technology in order to contrast seas and rivers pollution. International speakers from research and business world have contributes with their vision and personal experiences to deepen topics regarding robotics and underwater sensors, marine litter and innovative ecosystem: Stefano Maggio from Saipem, Emanuele Rocco from Witted, Nikola Miskovic from the University of Zagreb, Maurizio De Pirro from Castalia, Apostolos Papakonstantinou from Marine Remote Sensing Group, Fabio Dalmonte from SEADS, Vjeran Piršić from the Eko Kvarner Association, Giuseppe Saragò from Wärtsilä, Marcello Labruna from HiNelson and Emir Džanić from Funifer.
The afternoon “POP” meetings, addressed to a wider public, saw the participation of high level representatives from sailing world like Margherita Pelaschier and Giovanni Soldini, from the scientific world the NASA astronaut Umberto Guidoni and the oceanographer Ivona Cetinić, and from the economic side with the participation of the entrepreneur Andrea Illy, the sustainability Communication manager Alice Fortuna and the economist Marco Frey.
All the events have highlighted the dangerous situation and the degradation that affects the Adriatic Sea, and more in general, the entire marine system. The oceanographer Ivona Cetinić showed the consequences of the climate change on our planet during the last twenty years, and the same change has been experienced in first hand from the sailor Giovanni Soldini, that during his life on seas has stranded on a floating plastic island, providing that in two decades it will not be possible to sail in safety on our seas due to marine litter.
The important message that emerged from all the webinars, and particularly from those of the last day, focused on innovation ecosystems, is the need to move quickly towards the new productive paradigm of the circular economy, where the design of new products has to incorporate, from the first steps, a reasoning to the product’s end of life. All the webinars can be seen on the University of Trieste YouTube channel.
The International Innovation Summit was organized as part of the strategic InnovaMare project, funded by Interreg Cross Border Cooperation Italy-Croatia 2014-2020 Programme, that will jointly develop and establish an innovation ecosystem model in the area of underwater robotic and sensors for purposes of monitoring and surveillance sector, with a mission-oriented in the sustainability of the Adriatic Sea.
