Put the ITS Higher Technical Institutes at the center of a major transformation that sees the entrepreneurship of Friuli Venezia Giulia projected towards the digital horizon.
This is the goal of Friuli Innovazione and MITS Malignani of Udine, for months engaged in a revolutionary training course based on the methodology of approach to innovation Design Thinking, which involved 40 students from the two-year period of mechatronics of the Friulian institute.

"Design Thinking represents an innovative approach to problem solving and the creation of new solutions focused on people's needs, particularly valid also in the industrial and product fields - said Claudia Baracchini, project manager of Friuli Innovazione -. Adopting this kind of approach from the school desks means offering our kids new and competitive tools, able to project them into the labor market with an extra gear ".

The training course, which lasted four months, availed itself of international experts such as Mitja Ruzzier, professor of entrepreneurship and dean of the Faculty of Management of the Slovenian University of Primorska. Under their guidance, the students have gone through all stages of product development, to obtain a feasible and economically sustainable proposal at the industrial level. Last step: to know and visit some of the most innovative Austrian companies in the field of robotics and mechatronics, to understand how the principles of Design Thinking can be applied on an industrial level. These include LAM Research, a world-class provider of innovative technology and productivity solutions for the semiconductor industry, the Lakeside Science and Technology Park in Klagenfurt, the Joanneum Reaserch mechatronics and robotics institute and the University of Applied Sciences of Carinthia CUAS.

The training program conducted at MITS Malignani is funded by the EEsAA Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Alpe Adria project in the framework of Interreg V Italia-Austria 2014-2020. The EEsAA business ecosystem is aimed at connecting entrepreneurial hubs and local start-ups in a cross-border Cluster, where technology parks, universities, incubators and co-working play a central role in the joint promotion of the Alpe Adria entrepreneurial ecosystem as a destination for the best innovative companies in the region at the global level.