USI and SUPSI host LifestyleTech Competence Center activities
Institutional Communication Service
17 June 2021
The Sala Polivalente of USI-SUPSI East Campus in Lugano hosted on Tuesday, 15 June 2021, the Board Meeting and the General Assembly of the LifestyleTech Competence Center (LSTCC). The Association, of which USI and SUPSI are partners and co-founding members, aims to promote and support innovative companies active in research and development in the LifestyleTech sector. In the afternoon, the award ceremony of the Food Tech Award 2021 Retail Edition took place.
After the welcome addresses by USI Rector Boas Erez and the Deputy Mayor of Lugano, Michele Foletti, the day kicked off with the Board Meeting of the Association, introduced by LSTCC President Carlo Terreni, followed by LSTCC Vice President and Guess EU Vice President Finance International Ugo Boveri.
The second part of the event, dedicated to the General Assembly and the public presentation of some ongoing projects supported by the Association, began with a speech by Emanuele Carpanzano, SUPSI Innovative Technologies Department Director. Carpanzano thanked the members of the Association and underlined the importance of the collaboration among the different partners involved.
Dario Cardamone, Marketing Director of GUESS EU, Dr. Nadzeya Kalbaska, academic coordinator of the Master in Digital Fashion Communication at USI, and Marco Dal Lago, a researcher at SUPSI Department of Innovative Technologies, illustrated the features of Gen Z Lab: a project that addresses young people and brings them closer to the fashion industry with an innovative and technological approach. Among the other projects presented were "Made to Measure & Augmented Experience", with Bally, Accenture and USI, "FoodTech Scouting", with Microsoft and Loomish and "Investments & Job Creation - Ticino", with Hyphen and Accenture.
For Dr. Kalbaska “the LSTCC provides a space where people from different backgrounds - entrepreneurs, academics, students, tech experts, corporates - and from different lifestyle sectors - fashion, furniture, design, travel, and food - come together and work together. I am very pleased that together with the students of the Master in Digital Fashion Communication and PhD Candidates from the Institute of Digital Technologies for Communication we have actively participated in several initiatives this year. I am looking forward to future fruitful collaborations between the members of the Competence Center.”
The day continued with the proclamation of the winners of the Food Tech Award 2021, an initiative sponsored by Barilla and Lavazza, partners of the Lifestyle Tech Competence Center, and aimed at discovering innovative solutions in food retail, in particular, B2B or B2B2C start-ups and scale-ups working on consumer data capture and omnichannel solutions.
"The collaboration within the LSTCC association is a very positive and stimulating experience," said Professor Lorenzo Cantoni, Pro-Rector for Education and Students' Experience at USI. "This year, it has allowed us to carry out research and development activities in close contact with companies and involving the students of the Master in Digital Fashion Communication (double degree with Sorbonne in Paris) extensively. In particular, USI has collaborated with Microsoft on 'fashion' in videoconferencing, with Guess in the Gen Z Lab, with Bally and others in the Made to Measure & Augmented Experience project. We have also defined in detail future projects, in particular on digital communication of the company's assets, for example, with Bally, which will also participate in a Summer School organised by USI at Istituto Svizzero Roma at the end of August 2021".
Among the more than 60 international candidates, the jury, which also included Professor Luca Gambardella, Pro-Rector for Innovation and Corporate Relations at USI, and Professor Lorenzo Cantoni, Pro-Rector for Education and Student's Experience at USI, chose as winners in the two categories Client Engagement and Rich Data Capture respectively ANIMATICO (https://animati.co/) - Switzerland and NEXTATLAS (www.nextatlas.com) - Italy.
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