A weekend of innovation in TheNicePlace

Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd October, Nice welcomed young talents, start-ups and businesses for a weekend entirely dedicated to innovation, hosting the Favini Blue Wave. Organised by Azzurro Digitale, the event is inspired by the Open Innovation model, according to which, in order to innovate, companies cannot rely exclusively on their own in-house resources, but must open up to thoughts and inspirations from the outside.  

The 40 talented young people selected for Favini Blue Wave worked in groups for 30 hours non-stop to develop new ideas and solve the Design Challenge proposed by Favini, an international benchmark for special graphic products for packaging.

Throughout the weekend, the eight teams elaborated their vision of paper, developing possible future scenarios and innovative solutions following the Design Thinking approach. Then on Sunday morning, they presented their work to a panel of prominent figures from the academic world, technology and design, headed by Favini Chief Executive, Eugenio Eger.

The idea awarded the €2,500 prize envisaged the paper of the future as a conductor. As well as continuing to evoke emotions and transmit sensations, according to the winners, the role of "evolved" paper in our homes will be to improve energy efficiency and environmental sustainability, with high standards of design. 

"We embraced the idea of hosting this initiative in our social space ThePlace with enthusiasm, as this is where the elements of our corporate ecosystem meet the outside world to take part in an exchange able to shape the future, exploring new implications which will help us evolve", says Lauro Buoro, Chairman of Nice. "In two years, we have met almost nine thousand people. Our knack is to be receptive to change, to offer connected solutions able to dialogue with other systems and the world which surrounds us, both real and digital.”