On 4 December 2018 Rai organized an event with the aim of putting the company in contact with relevant startups operating in the area of media, fostering the creation of an ecosystem of stakeholders around the media industry and accelerate innovation.
The event is a variant of the Sandbox concept, consisting of a workshop of one day with presentations from Rai’s most innovative business units (Research Centre, Digital, Radio, ICT, Teche and Rai Pubblicità) and a number of small innovative companies and startups: 3 innovative small enterprises and 9 startups were involved. Also 2 startup hubs collaborated and participated to the event: the Incubator of the Polytechnic University of Turin I3P and Italia Startup, the biggest association of startups in Italy.
Around 60 people participated to the workshop (e.g. startup founders and employes, Rai researchers and engineers, startup associations).
After the workshop a questionnaire was sent to have feedback and improve next events, both to Rai business units and to external startups and associations.The received feedback shows a great interest for the event and the suggestion to involve also other European broadcasters for the next edition. Moreover, a TRL (technology readiness level) model for the collaboration between startups/industry, Rai Research Centre and other Rai business units has been proposed.
At the end of the day there was a networking session, and all participants could also attend to the demonstrations by the Research Centre and ICT of Rai.
The event was reported on a number of sources: social networks (Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin) and on web sites. A press release of the event curated by Research Centre of Rai is available.
The Rai Piemonte Regional TV News also described the workshop on December 5th, with an audience of more than 130 thousands listeners.