National Innovation Award, Frederick Iriant team on the podium

The Iriant team, a finalist at Start Cup Campania Mario Raffa 2022, a regional innovation award organized by the Seven Campania Universities, won first prize in the LifeScience Category at the National Innovation Award held Dec. 1-2 in L'Aquila.

Iriant, composed of Vincenzo Pavone, Maria De Fenza, Daniele D'Alonzo of the Department of Chemical Sciences at the University of Naples Federico II, won the first prize in the LifeScience Category worth 25 thousand euros with a project on the development of a new drug for the treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy (DR), prevailing over competitors from the other 16 regional Start Cups. It should also be noted that of the four finalists in the LifeScience category, as many as three came from StartCup Campania Mario Raffa 2022, namely the University of Naples Federico II, University of Naples Parthenope and University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli.

The National Innovation Award (PNI), Italy's leading competition between innovative business plans, established in 2003 by theItalian Association of University Incubators and Business Plan Competitions - PNICube, this year was organized by theUniversity of L'Aquila, in collaboration with the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI) and theInnovalley Association.

One and a half million euros was the total prize money, including about 500,000 euros in cash and 1 million euros in services, offered by PNICube member universities and incubators all along the way from regional competitions to the final challenge.

The Jury, in addition to the four prizes of 25,000 euros each, decreed an overall winner who won the Champions Cup, namely Archygram an AI-based web app that makes automatic
surveying and to architectural classification using images from a smartphone.

Several Special Prizes were also provided by prestigious partner companies.