I-CENTER, the agorà of innovation to support SMES toward “Society 5.0”

Industry 4.0, SMEs, digital transformation, vision 5.0, training, skills, people at the center: these are the pillars that give life to “I-Center”, a project to create a range of specialized innovative services that comes from the synergy between Considi, a consulting firm that, inspired by the Japanese TPS – Toyota Production System, supports companies in the processes of change; t2i technology transfer and innovation, a consortium company for the innovation of the Chambers of Commerce of Treviso-Belluno, Verona and Venice Rovigo Delta-Lagunare; and Talent Garden Padova, the campus of innovators of the largest international co-working network in Europe.

I-Center was founded with the aim of supporting small and medium-sized Italian companies in the process of digital transformation for greater competitiveness, bringing new skills and the best technologies within companies. I-Center aims to become a real “Agora of Innovation”, a gym of minds and soul in the process of renewal of SMEs, where companies can share and generate new processes of innovation, putting a common factor experiences to respond to daily challenges and increase people skills.

A process of innovation that will be applied concretely with the “Society 5.0” approach, a model in which the digitalization of processes does not exclude man, but puts it at the center. A new intelligent company, which absorbs the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution not only to improve efficiency and productivity but also to increase skills and help improve people’s daily lives.

In a polarized context where, on the one hand, large companies are planning or have already entered the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and on the other, SMEs are struggling to integrate the 4.0 approach into their business model, I- Center proposes itself as an interlocutor for SMEs to stimulate, intervene, suggest and identify processes of change and innovation, accompanying the entrepreneur and his / her people in the design and activation of autonomous Digital Transformation paths.

I-Center will be an open and innovative network that will work in partnership with Italian and international institutions and institutions – from the university and research system to Digital Innovation Hubs, from the Fraunhofer Institutes network to prestigious global companies such as Toyota – proposing a service network oriented to create innovative processes starting from the bottom. There are three guidelines on which I-Center activity will develop: Spreading, the activity of information, vision, comparison and discussion; Consulting, orientation and consultancy for the design and implementation of innovative paths and dedicated services, and Training, awareness and training on the issues of Industry 4.0 and Lean Production.