An Innovation Marathon

“Fridays for Future” came to Terna’s Innovation Hub in Turin when a group of university students presented their initiatives, all in support of environmental protection. The first hackathon was delivered in collaboration with Terna and CLICK, Turin Polytechnic University’s innovation laboratory, focused on research on innovative solutions for environmental monitoring, through the installation of sensors, fiber communication systems and computing environments distributed on Terna’s pylons.

30 engineering students met at the Innovation Hub to debate how to use the data from smart towers, Terna’s smart pylons. It is this data which supports the development of technologies that can help to counteract land consumption, help with fire prevention, air quality control and many other applications. The winning project was Grape Up, a wind monitoring system which aims to prevent damage to vineyards using sensors installed along the high-voltage grid.

The hackathon was an important opportunity for discussion and debate, one of the inherent advantages to collaborations between academic institutions and a company like Terna. In a scenario where companies require ever more direct access to new ideas and different perspectives, these sorts of initiatives are fundamental in the development of skills that universities are often unable to provide students with: problem solving, teamwork, rapid response skills, and all within the same amount of time you would typically see in a “work” environment.

The Innovation Hub, with its proximity to the Turin Polytechnic University, represents a location which is fortunate in the available synergies between the national territories and local excellence. Contact and exchange are fundamental ingredients for any company whose primary aims include innovation. "These hubs aim to create communities where work groups involving resources from different backgrounds can interact in a collaborative way, developing and testing the prototypes of their ideas," explains Piero Rosina, Terna’s Manager of Innovation, Digital & Energy Solutions. “It’s with initiatives like this that we are trying to create environments conducive to innovation,” added Silvia Marinari, Head of Human Resources and Organisation.