Italian startups: Changemakers for Expo 2015: the Finalists

Changemakers for Expo Milano 2015, the business incubator and accelerator program aimed at young talents with a world-changing idea, got to its final phase.

After screening 583 applications from October to December, the organization led by Expo Milano 2015 and Telecom  Italia revealed the names of the 10 teams that will be enrolled in the 8-week managerial development course that will take place in Milan in March and April.

During this time 16 lecturers and 50 mentors will work side by side with the winners and help them develop their idea. At the end of the 2 month period, the most scalable and innovative ones will be presented to potential investors and business partners.

It took the creation of a new word, Changemakers, to describe a brand new category of characters that will reshape the future of our society, soon and significantly.

A Changemaker is a young professional, mainly under 30, who works in teams and is visionary enough to come up with an idea that can have a positive impact on at least one million people.

The idea needs to be innovative, scalable, sustainable and its outcome must be measurable. We already knew these features since the launch of the call for ideas four months ago, but today we can finally add the most important one: a Changemaker is a founder of one of the following 10 startups.

Orange Fiber: bridging two Italian excellences, namely fashion industry and citrus fruits and thanks to nanotechnologies and R&D, the startup developed clothes made with citrus wastes that release vitamins A, C and D through the skin. All the clothes are made by underprivileged people, which adds a positive social impact to the initiative.

Fifth Element Project: a platform aimed at developing thorough therapies for autistic children by analysing their ludic activity through sensor movements linked to a game console. This allows doctors to provide them with personalized and interactive therapies.

Tooteko: how would the world look like if objects could speak? Tooteko makes any surface clickable, then, thanks to ultrasounds, it applies an audio track to it. Among the many possible uses of this technology is the aid to blind people in getting information from objects.

Trail Me Up: a website that provides guided virtual tours to places which are accessible exclusively by walking. Images are acquired through a 360 degree camera mounted on the real traveller's backpack in order to give the same perspective as a live experience. Thanks to a sort of recruiting, anyone can receive the kit and act as a cameraman.

Smart Ground: an example of 3.0 agriculture, it is a digital platform aimed at managing production efficiently by reducing wastes and monitoring the harvest field through sensors.

Bircle: a mobile app that allows wheel chair users to download touristic guides that target their needs. Through the use of crowdsourcing, users can help increasing the size of the database.

Recyproco: a social network aimed at giving objects a second life in order to reduce wastes. Users can create online windows to exchange objects and, thanks to an algorithm, measure the environmental impact of the trade.

Brand Security: a digital weapon against counterfeiting. It consists of an invisible microchip (a technology called NFC) with a certificate embedded. It can be inserted in clothes or objects and be detected by a smartphone in order to verify their authenticity.

Panpan - Ask Everywhere: a social information platform that allows to submit "geolocalized" questions via Twitter, targeting people in a specific area. An algorithm identifies the best answerers, i.e. the people that are more likely to answer the question properly.

Knock'nswap: a platform for the exchange and sale of goods, competencies and time. Alongside with web space, it also uses dedicated physical spaces (Knock Corners) inside commercial centres, where the exchange or sale can take place.