The launch event of INVEST’s operational path was held yesterday morning, on Tuesday, January 19, 2021. The project has been promoted by the United States Government through the federal agency USAID, with the aim to support the Italian private sector engaged in the front row of the fight against the pandemic.
Virtually organized by the American Embassy in Rome – and in collaboration with the Emilia-Romagna Region and Roncucci & Partners – the event gave the opportunity to the 25 selected Italian companies to be presented and to inaugurate the technical assistance programs provided to them.
Important exponents of these institutions including Thomas Smitham – recently passed to the leadership of the Embassy of the United States of America in Italy, Stefano Bonaccini – President of the Conference of Regions and President of the Emilia-Romagna Region, Vincenzo Colla – Councilor to the Economic Development and Green Economy, Labor, Training of the ER Region and Luigi Nicolais – former President of the National Research Council, and current head of the Materias innovation hub, were among the speakers. A message was also sent by Noemi Danao-Schroeder, project representative of USAID INVEST from Washington DC.
During the event conducted by Giovanni Roncucci, the INVEST project for which Roncucci & Partners was commissioned to select 25 companies throughout the country and undertake a path that favors their growth and the production of antivirus solutions was carefully illustrated.
The 25 selected companies
The 25 beneficiaries of the technical assistance course that will be provided over a 12-month period, are companies having taken action in the fight against the virus by strengthening or even reconverting their production lines in order to meet the ever-increasing demands, from masks to rapid tests, from innovative sanitation systems to special bio-containment stretchers for handling patients.
The range of offered solutions covers various aspects related to the pandemic, from prevention to diagnosis and treatment of the disease. Based on the type of their production, the 25 businesses have been classified into three clusters.
The first cluster, incorporating the prevention items, is composed of 15 companies out of which 6 companies are located in Emilia Romagna (Automa 2000 of Cesena (Fc), Lesepidado of San Lazzaro (Bo), Ghepi of Cavriago (Re), Nilma and MM Operations of Parma, Colorificio MP of Rimini); two in Lambordy (FAP Italia of Milan and Extris of Como); two in Campania (Erbagil of Benevento and Gruppo FB of Napoli); two in Sicily (Parmon and NTET, both from Catania); together with WLP of Trento; Giuntini of Florence and SFL – Service Facility Logistics Coop of Lecce. The second cluster, comprising the diagnostic items, includes 4 companies; BIOSIDE of Lodi, COMES of Taranto; Edif Instruments of Rome and Denken Italy of Mercato Saraceno (Fc). Finally, the third cluster, encompassing the treatment items, is composed of 6 companies, HSIGN of Macerata, STEM and Omnidermal Biomedics of Parma, Conf Industries of Brescia, Promedicare of Brindisi and OMP Engineering of Vicenza.
Further, following the representation of the 25 companies and the 3 clusters described, Bianca Dondarini – Sales and Marketing Manager of Lesepidado, a Bolognese company specialized in sanitizing solutions for hands, surfaces and fabrics; Vincenzo Cesareo – CEO of Comes, a company from Taranto that produces TermoScanners for access control and Marco Farina, Co-Founder and CBO of Omnidermal Biomedics, a Parma-based start-up that makes respirators, as the representatives of the beneficiaries took the floor and shared few words.
The Technical Assistance path
The technical assistance path designed by Roncucci & Partners includes 25 individual courses of actions considering and based on the specific differences and business needs when calibrating the intervention on certain areas such as production, marketing, distribution, finance and legal aspects. The ultimate goal is to increase the resilience, competitiveness, and preparedness of this group of companies to encounter any future emergencies.
To this end, Roncucci & Partners has set up 4 project teams to assist the 25 companies throughout the technical assistance process, activating a panel of high-level experts alongside the internal staff, selected to support the development of the project in some specific areas of intervention. On the innovation side, MATERIAS, an innovative start-up chaired by Luigi Nicolais (former President of the CNR and former Minister of Public Administration) will be involved. On the legal aspects, the De Beaumont e Associati firm and the Barbalich Law Practice firm respectively specialized in the field of international law and commercial, corporate and contractual law will be in charge. Finally, when it comes to production issues, the Team will avail itself of the expertise of Engineer Tiziano Tesi, with his strong international experience in production, supply chain, logistics and the handling of goods, and his competence in developing analysis and intervention tools, which have already been applied in numerous industrial contexts for the optimization of business processes.
