Solvers Wanted is the platform that responds to our concept of transformation and evolution of Open Innovation: a tool to support the technological development of the Group, with a Demand Driven approach to identify solutions to specific needs, capable of accelerating the development of technological/strategic plans in line with the 2024-2028 Industrial Plan.

As Simone Ungaro, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer of Leonardo, explains, “With Solvers Wanted, Leonardo starts from the point of view of the industry to understand the needs, and then moves towards the system composed of companies, research centres, and universities, to explore possible solutions”.

Concluded in October 2024, Looking4Partners is the new format within Solvers Wanted that aims to pre-select Leonardo's future technological partners in research and development activities, related to Italian and/or European co-financed projects.

The first Looking4Partners challenge asked participants to propose and test technological solutions aimed at detecting, identifying and characterising information content from multi-source satellite images.

Three finalists were awarded a prize of 10,000 euros each, and then competed in a live test of the solution presented, at Leonardo's headquarters, to determine which of them would acquire the qualification of our technological partner. The tests were customised to the specifics of the candidates' proposals by our technical team composed of colleagues from Leonardo’s Space Business Unit, Telespazio, and e-GEOS.
 

The two start-ups that have become Leonardo's Technological Partners and are joining the nascent start-up affiliation network "Leonardo Team for Innovation" are:

• Start-up MOTUS ml, with the project "Continuous and adaptive analysis of multi-sensor satellite images: reveal the vast universe of Space data, at your fingertips", presented by the team composed of Emanuele Della Valle, Alessio Bernardo, and Giacomo Ziffer;
• Start-up STUDIOMAPP, with the project "Analysis of satellite images using AI on metric and sub-metric resolution data", presented by the team composed of Leonardo Dal Zovo and Angela Corbari.

A special mention went to the finalist start-up Latitudo 40 and to Quæsta.ai which, despite not being in the final, was of great interest to the Leonardo Group.