Innovation Development

A fruitful exploitation of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for the generation of value and innovation requires a deep understanding of important complementary aspects that have to do with strategy, economics, society and policy.
The Innovation Development Area includes the following units:

  • Business Model and & Policy Innovation
  • Innovation Front End
  • Scouting and Publications on Innovation
  • Intellectual Property Management

Business Model & Policy Innovation
The work conducted by this research unit is aimed at supporting both policy makers and managers in using ICTs as a leverage to favour sustainable socioeconomic development and competitiveness.
From a business perspective, the research team adopts a set of qualitative and quantitative methodologies for the definition and the analysis of new business models that may be adopted in the commercialization of technological products or services.
The analyses are conducted at value network level and take into account different diffusion scenarios.
The presence of sound business models offering a fair remuneration to all the actors involved in the value chain represents a prerequisite to turn technological inventions into profitable innovations.
Such activity is being conducted on applications of new technological paradigms such as the Internet of Things (IOT) in a number of vertical domains: environmental monitoring, banking, infomobility and freight logistics.
From a policy point of view, a first strand of research is aimed at supporting Piedmont Regional Government in the definition and monitoring of the ICT related policies. This is done mainly through the long lasting participation in the Piedmont Regional Observatory on ICT (PICTO). The observatory is coordinated by Regional Institute of Social and Economic researches (IRES Piemonte) and the result of a collaboration among a number of institutions operating in the field ICT on the regional territory (CSI Piemonte, CSP Piemonte, ISMB and Polytechnic of Turin). Recently, the Piedmont ICT Observatory has been recognized as a European good practice by a fast track Interreg project for the diffusion of broadband named Regions for Better Broadband Connections (B3 Regions). The aim of this activity is to study the development of the Information Society in a regional and international framework, through the analysis of the offer and demand of ICT services by the main socio-economic actors (citizens, enterprises and local public administrations).

Innovation Front End
The Front Office is available to companies that want to invest in their future and believe in innovation to compete in the market.
The Innovation Front End (IFE) is the advantaged access channel created for all companies that want to get in touch with the Politecnico di Torino and Istituto Superiore Mario Boella.
A single entry point available to welcome, identify, acknowledge and interpret the research and innovation requirements from the world of business and the public and private operators in all fields of engineering.
Innovation is a network process; especially for ICT companies, IFE operates with the support and cooperation of Fondazione Torino Wireless. Moreover IFE allows you to get in touch with the Innovation Clusters created by Regione Piemonte.
http://www.innovationfrontend.eu

Scouting and Publication on Innovation
Nowadays innovation represents one of the most important aspects that enterprises have to take into account when defining their business strategy in order to emerge from the reference scenario and compete in the market.
The Scouting and Publications (SPI) unit has the goal of supporting industry throughout the identification and selection of the ICT emerging trends in both the Italian and the international markets. By performing technology scouting activities, the SPI unit provides manager and decision maker with powerful tools (e.g. reports, benchmarks and infographics) to support the adoption of technological trends within their business processes.
Among the promising application domains for the communications and information technologies, the banking sector is becoming one of the most relevant mainly due to the diffusion of the so-called “multi-channel approach”, which exploits very emerging technologies to realize new services and products characterized by a very exciting user experience. Thanks to the collaboration with Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, the SPI unit has developed strong competences in this field and in particular towards specific topics like electronics commerce and mobile payments, social tools and networks, gamification applied to non-game applications and processes, enterprise cloud computing, office automation and many others.

Intellectual Property Management
Intellectual Property Management research unit is aiming the promotion and exploitation of research results: the Institute's knowledge, the patents and all intellectual property rights developed by the Institute. The presence of the unit shows the attention and sensitivity to the management of "intangible assets" of the Institute. The unit operates with internal resources and external affiliated partners.