BAIAblog

An Interview with Gino Ferretti, President of the University of Parma

Gino Ferretti is the President (Rettore) of the University of Parma (Università degli Studi di Parma) in Italy. Parma is a very interesting  city, not only for its incredible cultural and historical heritage, but also its gastronomic tradition which brought us such products as Parmigiano-Reggiano and Prosciutto di Parma. Thanks to a flourishing and technologically advanced food industry, it has become known as the Food Valley, an obvious reference to the Silicon Valley. By many Italians the city is considered a live laboratory experimenting different combinations of tradition and innovation. From his position at the University of Parma, Gino Ferretti is the person that can marry the incredibly rich food traditions of Parma with the business opportunities and challenges created by the global market and economy. Having known Gino Ferretti for more than 15 years, I asked him to share his ideas on how to bridge the Silicon Valley business models with the Food Valley food traditions.

Professor Ferretti, can you tell us a bit about yourself and the University of Parma?

The origins of the University of Parma go back more than one thousand years. While the original constitutive document has been lost, we still have an ordinance of the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I dating back to 964 AD authorizing the Bishop of Parma to institute a Law School. We have records of scholars active in the city in the following centuries, but it was only in 1406 that a document was drafted stating a "re-foundation" of the University as an institution independent from the local bishop.
Today 1,100 teachers and a total of 1,100 technicians and administrative employees work for the University of Parma. We have about 30,000 students spread over 12 Faculties: Law, Literature, Economy, Political Sciences, Psychology, Medicine, Pharmacology, Veterinary Medicine, Agriculture, Science, Architecture, and Engineering.
According to our data, 48% of out students come from outside of the Emilia-Romagna region, while only 33% come from the city and province of Parma.
Answering the question about myself: I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Bologna. In my career I taught at several universities including Bologna, Padova, Trento, and, for the last 20 years, Parma. I have been in charge of the Reggio-Emilia public transportation company as President for about 2 years. After holding the title of Director of the Department of Industrial Engineering for six years, I have been elected Dean of the Engineering Faculty for 2 years. I've been the President (Rettore) of the University of Parma since the 2000 and thanks to the favorable results of the recent elections, I will be in charge until 2011.

According to Ignazio Marino, President of the Italian Senate's Health Commission, Italy is second only to India in the phenomenon known as fuga di cervelli or “brain drain”. This suggests that while Italian universities produce competitive young researchers and engineers, the Italian business and economic environment does not attract them. What’s your opinion?

The quoted statement is absolutely correct. This is mostly the result of a political crisis that dates back to the seventies. The social and economic differences between the diverse parts of Italy and the enduring political and ideological conflicts make governing our country a very difficult task. The instability of the government creates a difficult situation for enterprises and entrepreneurs with the result of slowing down economic development. Despite these problems Italy's scientific production, when considering the funding and the resources available to researchers, is at a very high level. What has been missing is a strong and consistent commitment of the central administration that has instead favored other sectors pursuing an easier and faster popular consensus.

The region of Parma is known as the “Food Valley” (an obvious reference to the Silicon Valley). Which parts of the economic model of the Food Valley could be adopted here in the US, and which aspects of the Silicon Valley economic model would be beneficial in the Food Valley?

The province of Parma and its region have historically been among the wealthiest and more productive agricultural areas in Europe. This richness brought us high quality products, stimulated a flourishing local food industry, and therefore supports a network of companies producing machines and plants for food processing. We are talking about small and medium companies making high quality products, and structurally unable to compete at the price level. Their products, coming from the rich local tradition, have specific features that were intended for a market and consumers that don't exist anymore. The current effort is to evolve those products that were not designed for large distribution or for a global market, in order to adapt them to the new markets and to make them more competitive. We are working on technologies, packaging, logistics, and branding. For these reasons our local business model is significantly different from the one used in Silicon Valley. We share the need for continuous innovation in order to sustain our economic growth.

Market globalization is a huge opportunity for Parma to expand its economy on a planetary scale. What is the role of the University of Parma in this new scenario?

I believe that global competition forces the scientific research, the scientific institutions, and our "capability to innovate" into a central and strategic position. Therefore the University has an important role to play, both indirectly preparing people and directly collaborating with enterprises. For this reason we are currently working on a new scientific park to host spin-offs from the academia and research labs shared with outside business enterprises.

In 2004 Parma was appointed the seat of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). What is the University's relationship with the EFSA?

EFSA is an institution that works in the same way as a scientific institution. We have a contact group and together we organize conferences and seminars. Several of our labs at the University have been accredited to provide consultancies and support for the EFSA. We are creating with them a Media Center for scientific communication. We have also to consider that EFSA hasn't yet fully deployed all of its activities in Parma.

In recent years the University of Parma started programs to foster spin-offs and new businesses. What has been your experience so far, and what are your expectations for the future?

The Italian academic world is not yet used to mapping its knowledge into business opportunities, though the situation is quickly changing. Some of our most recent spin-offs are achieving great results as businesses and we are determined, as a University, to further develop this approach in the coming years.

Thanks to the Internet, several Italian entrepreneurs in California are starting to look at Italy as a viable source of a highly qualified and relatively inexpensive work force. How can an association like BAIA be more effective in establishing these kinds of reciprocally beneficial connections?

I don't know your association and the way you work well enough to give you a specific answer. The best way to start a collaboration could be to jointly approach a specific problem from the legal and technical point of view. For example, I see opportunities to work together on topics such as the legal aspects of the import/export of food products in Italy and California. The reference person for those topics is Barbara Panciroli (barbara.panciroli1@unipr.it), from our Technology Transfer Center.

I would like to thank Gino Ferretti for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Prof. Ferretti or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Franco Folini

An Interview with Francesco Lemmi, Director at innovalight

2007 is the International Heliophysical Year, celebrated at a time when businesses and individuals around the world are compelled to look at solar energy and other renewable energy sources to fuel a cleaner, sustainable future. In an aura of hope and ongoing progress, BAIA is looking at both American and Italian companies, offering the spotlight to innovative businesses and entrepreneurs who are making the promise of renewables become concrete on both sides of the ocean. With this goal in mind, BAIA has just hosted an event on renewable energy “From Galileo to Arnold: Redefining the Center of the Energy Universe” (pictures on Flickr), with six prestigious panelists from Innovalight, PG&E, the San Francisco Department of Environment, Solar Ventures and SRI International.

As a follow up to the insights we have learned from our panelists, we are continuing our process of discovery and promotion of these clean energy champions and I have interviewed Dr. Francesco Lemmi of Innovalight, one of the Red Herring top 100 innovators of 2007.

Francesco, can you tell us a bit about yourself and your company?
I came to Silicon Valley from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, to work on amorphous silicon devices and physics at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) after my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering. Most of the research activity was focused on the development of high-resolution X-ray medical imaging. After two years in Rome working as an Assistant Professor (“Ricercatore Universitario”) in Electrical Engineering, I returned to Silicon Valley. I have, then since held engineering and management positions at FlexICs, Inc. and Nanosys, Inc., working on ultra-low temperature polysilicon thin-film transistors and on Silicon nanowires, both in the area of device and process development. During this last year I have been heading the solar cell device development at Innovalight, using a proprietary “Silicon Ink” technology. In my career I have been author of 9 US patents and several more pending patent applications, as well as more than 40 publications on international scientific journals.

How would you explain to non-experts, the way Innovalight’s technology differs from the current, most common photovoltaic technology used in today’s commercial solar cells?
In a nutshell, Innovalight uses nanotechnology as a vehicle to cut the costs by a factor of 10 when compared to today’s conventional solar technology. Our product, while still in development, will look not much different to today’s solar cells. We have employed nanotechnology as a vehicle to create the product from scratch. This approach cuts out all of the very expensive processes used to manufacture solar cells today. We have chosen to develop our technology platform based on Silicon, which we believe to be the safest, most abundant and reliable material for photovoltaic applications.

What will be the benefits, in terms of cost and/or efficiency, of applying this technology to the mass production of solar cells and possibly other light-powered devices?
The key metric inhibiting the global adoption of solar cell technology is the cost to produce a watt of electricity. Solar cells today are still too expensive and cannot compete with conventional fossil fuel electricity generation. Today, solar modules cost about $5.00 per watt. For solar energy to takeoff worldwide, it must get to below $1.00 per watt. We believe we can reduce that to well below $1.00 per watt with our technology.

There seem to exist different generations of solar cells;  which generation does Innovalight belong to, or are you creating a whole new breed of nanocrystal solar cells?
Generation I is the “classical” Silicon wafer based solar cell. I guess we belong to Generation II of solar cell technologies, sometimes characterized as thin-films. In the end, customers who buy solar cells will not care what technology is used or if it contains nano-crystalline technology. Decisions will be made on how much it will cost. We are focused on that and making solar energy affordable. Generation III is about future multi-junction solar cells, and holds the promise of delivering extremely high conversion efficiencies. While we believe that our Silicon Ink technology could be used in such applications, we acknowledge that the time-to-market for Gen III devices is very likely to be well above a decade. Hence, we focus on Gen II type of devices for our first product, while maintaining a possible long-term R&D interest in Gen III.

Innovalight appears to be currently focused on grid-connected solutions;  is it possible that once your technology goes to market, there will be room to adapt it to autonomous energy systems, cost-effectively?
We are focused exclusively on grid-connected applications because that is where the multi billion dollar market is currently. Other markets will continue to emerge, such as portable power, but these are still very small markets with very different requirements. We see ourselves staying focused on grid applications (rooftop) for the foreseeable future.

Some of your competitors have been also performing research in nanotechnology, some on silicon thin-film solar cells, and some of them have an established network of integrators as well as the marketing and financial muscle to quickly bring their solutions to market.  Do you see Innovalight compete head-to-head with them, or do you believe your technology is unique or it applies to a specific niche?
We will be competing of course. At least for the next couple of years there will be plenty of opportunities for existing and new-entrants in the market, irrespective of the technologies employed. With solar energy only representing 0.01 percent of the electrical energy market today, there will be plenty of growth opportunity for many companies. If the cost per Watt of solar energy is brought well below one dollar, the market becomes virtually endless.

Your extensive research background is partly from Italy;  do you believe it is possible to adopt Innovalight’s technology now in the Italian market, and if so, do you see Innovalight establishing a presence overseas, or rather license its technology to Italian companies and/or work through local partners?
Italy, and the whole of the European continent are very important markets – in fact being the largest market today, they will factor importantly into our plans. It is not inconceivable that we will have our own operations in Europe, perhaps including Italy, in the future. As for licensing, that is something we will look at long-term. In the near to mid-term instead, as we grow, we plan on retaining a tight grip on our technology.

Do you see a fairly rapid trend developing, in the adoption of advanced solar solutions in Italy, or a more conservative approach, possibly diluted over time until proven solutions come to market?
At the present stage, and for all markets including Italy, the adoption of solar power is bound to governmental incentives, due to the still-too-high cost. A good example of how a country can expand vigorously its solar power component is given by Germany. In Germany, the extremely advantageous governmental incentives have boosted the solar energy sector to the first place worldwide. Germany has very aggressive plans to convert a sizeable portion of its total energy needs to solar in one and a half decades. Such governmental incentives have also prompted the growth of a very strong solar industry constellation of companies, including supporting businesses such as solar cell production tool makers, etc. This is ultimately the reason why Germany is going to be able to keep on their plans, over the years. Italy does have governmental incentives in place as well for solar energy, but the extent they can go to and the ease of obtaining them could be perhaps improved to boost the sector more efficiently. Over time, the cost of solar modules will be reduced and countries which have now a leading edge will still be in the best conditions to maintain it and push it further.

I would like to thank Francesco Lemmi for taking the time to speak with me today. If you have any questions for Francesco or for BAIA, please leave a comment below and we will be glad to answer.

Lucia Panini

The New FIAT 500 is Here!

Torino and Italy will be celebrating a festive, special 4th of July this year, in a unique coincidence with the American celebration of Independence.

Torino – capital of Italy when the country was unified in 1861, and home of the 2006 Winter Olympics – is known around the world mostly for its automobile tradition, heralded by FIAT.

This 4th of July, the new FIAT 500 will debut, on the 50th anniversary of the launch of its first predecessor.

Torino and several other cities around the country will make their historically-charged piazzas  center stage for the FIAT 500, while supporting a very important charitable initiative:  “Un nido per Pollicino, aiutiamo i piu’ piccoli a diventare grandi”, a fund raising campaign in support of premature babies.

The highlight of the event is expected to be a show by the PO river, on the night of July 4th in Torino, presented by K-events/FilmMaster Group, directed by Marco Balich, the most famous Italian Creative Producer, whose works include the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Olympics.

Starting at 10 PM Italian time (1PM PST), the show will be available in streaming video at:  www.fiat500.com

Lucia Panini