Fostering the search for innovative solutions and supporting the Group's technological progress: these are the objectives of Solvers Wanted, Leonardo's technology scouting platform. Mainly targeted at Universities, Spin-Offs, Start-Ups, Small and Medium Enterprises and Research Centres, it aims to stimulate the innovation process through specific initiatives and events in the name of the Demand Driven Innovation strategy.
The project represents a bridge that connects the world of research, where ideas originate, and the industry, which transforms them into products and services. As Simone Ungaro explains, "With Solvers Wanted, Leonardo starts from the perspective of industry to understand the needs, and then moves towards the system made up of companies, research centres and universities, to explore possible solutions”.
As part of Solvers Wanted, Leonardo’s scouting platform running from 2021, the Looking4Partners format aims to pre-select innovative players who will join the company, as technology partners, in research and development activities on national and European funded projects. The initiative is described through the voices of Simone Ungaro, Chief Innovation Officer, and Pierpaolo Gambini, Head of Open Innovaton and IP at Leonardo.
Currently the platform hosts four kinds of challenges, characterised by targeted objectives: the Technology Challenges, with a low Technology Readiness Level, aimed at searching for partners to start co-development and collaboration paths in funded projects; the 'Exploit My Patent', designed to identify one or more ways of industrial application of a selection of Leonardo patents, enhancing inventions also in contexts other than domestic ones; the 'Co-Challenges', to search with other partners for solutions with higher maturity, in line with the 'Try and Test' approach to assess the potential and benefits of the technological solutions; the 'Internal Challenges', aimed at identifying solutions that enhance the innovative drive of the Group's people.
With the goal of proposing new projects with high innovation potential, this year Solvers Wanted introduces the fifth Looking4Partners format, which aims to identify and test innovative candidates to become Leonardo's technology partners in national and European funded projects. The initiative includes two challenges, focusing on multi-sensor ‘Integration for Autonomous Drone Navigation in Hostile Environments’ and ‘Multi-Sensor Satellite Image Analysis’. In addition, the platform will propose a 'technology' challenge, in conjunction with Leonardo Labs, on ‘Autonomous Drone Flight Technology’.
Beside getting a contract for direct collaboration, the Challenge Solvers Wanted winners will receive the 'Leonardo Team for Innovation' logo dedicated to the network of external innovators who, together with Leonardo, will help build the innovation of the future.