The first Italian Blank Disrupt will take place on 28-29 March in Catania: two days dedicated to the spread the culture, methodology, and the procedure of what is called “disruptive innovation”.

Innovation does not apply just to technology. Todays challenges in the organization of labor can be solved only through a radical change that could be able to offer original solutions and create new paradigms.

In order to learn new ways to confront these challenges, Blank Disrupt has organized a day of talks and another one of workshops featuring international speakers talking about their experiences and visions.

The day of 28 March will be dedicated to workshops that will be held at Hotel UNA in Catania. The participants will test various innovative techniques such as the “co-creation” with the methodology Lego Serious Play – which allows to solve complex problems with a maximum of involvement on the parts of the participating players – or experimenting those systems of tests of their own product or business models envisaged for the startups, tests that hastens processes of validation and developments.

On 29 March, at the Monastero Benedettino di San Nicolò there will be the talks, including that by Salvatore Di Dio, who will tell about his experience at PUSH in his paper “The Lean Urban Design”.

The keynote speaker will present an overview of the Mediterranean ecosystem of innovation, but other topics will be touched upon, such as Bitcoins – the new virtual currency that, ever more integrated in the digital platforms threatens the monetary systems – to the last updates in design, to those “liquid” organizations that can adjust more easily to changes.

There will be also space to discuss gamification, featuring the successful Sicilian startup Beintoo, and to talk about pioneering developments in microelectronics and applied nanotechnologies allowing high value-added services such as the remote treatment of patients or the diagnostics of buildings’ structural conditions.

In Sicily, a land that has been witness to important events, Blank Disrupt wants to address businessmen, researchers, students, Public Administration’s officers, CEOs, and all those innovators wanting to experience changes with more awareness and trying to seize the best opportunities. It will be a perfect blend of culture, identity, and innovation.

Blank Disrupt is organized by the association Blank together with Cocoon Projects and StartupBusiness.
 

For more info, see http://blankfactory.org/blankdisrupt/ 

Tickets available on Eventbrite

The experimentation of trafficO2 has officially started: the private Beta version was issued today, which 42 students of the University of Palermo selected during the workshop “Mobility, behaviors: apps”, will test on their smartphones.

This is the first step of an experimentation that aims to involve the over 60.000 students of the University of Palermo, and subsequently the entire city population.
The tester sample will be gradually extended, as well as the app functions, which will be improved and enhanced based on suggestions by the testers, who will review the app periodically.

The PUSH team is currently working on a second release, expected on December 25th, a Christmas gift in the sign of sustainability.

Press conference for the presentation of the trafficO2  project –social network for sustainable mobility and for the “Mobility, Behaviors: Apps” workshop, organized in collaboration with the University of Palermo.
The press conference will be held on October 26^th at 10:30am, at the beautiful location, Sala delle Capriate of the monumental complex of Palazzo Chiaramonte Steri, Piazza Marina n. 41, Palermo.

For more info on the workshop clicca qui.

To attend to the press conference, enroll at Eventbrite

PUSH team will be in Bologna for the  Smart City Exhibition, an event organized by FORUM PA and Bologna Fiere that will take place on 16-18 October 2013.

The goal of this event, to which the most advanced urban life and communication actors will take part, is the creation of a policy for smart cities seen as an Italian and a European priority. Such a policy will imply a completely new vision of the idea of city, meant as set of fluxes of information and network of relations and communications, both physical and digital, and characterized by the ability of creating social capital, a diffuse welfare, and a better quality of life. New is also the recipe for the creation of this new city, a formula based on participation and qualified collaboration, on the mapping of wide international scenarios, on the construction of a shared new culture that could help transform a valuable project applicable to the whole country into a series of concrete and durable initiatives.

trafficO2 will be present in the area PON Ricerca e Competitività,dedicated to the projects funded in the context of the public competition “Smart Cities and Social Innovation” (here’s the list of the applicants).

It will be a great opportunity to meet, ponder, and discuss Italian and international projects – realized or still in process – in order to create synergies aimed at policies that are sustainable, far-sighted, and able to respond to the citizens’ needs.

In addition, the project will be narrated in a 3-minute pitch during the conference entitled “Smart City umane e sostenibili: condivisione, collaborazione, innovazione comunitaria” to be held Thursday 17 October, from 9.30 am to 13 pm.

Click here you shall find the complete program of the event, which will include many initiatives like a lab entitled “Citizen at play: techniques and experimentations of gamification in cities”, where Salvatore Di Dio is going to speak about the importance and the role of game mechanisms in the app trafficO2. Among the featured speakers there will be Gianni Dominici, FORUM PA’s director-general, Pablo Sánchez, Innovative Urban Planner at Eolex CityLab and Fabio Viola, gamification designer.

Please, come and visit us at Bologna Fiere – Pad. 31.