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Open Innovation to Solve global challenges

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Rome, February 13th 2019

MIT Solve and Enel Foundation hosted a Challenge Workshop in Rome involving 40 Innovation and Sustainability experts from Enel Group to help define global challenges for the 2019 edition of the MIT’s open innovation initiative.

Enel Foundation is a member of MIT Solve supporting its commitment to find concrete solutions for a sustainable future for all. The workshop organized in Rome involved Enel Group experts who helped identify regional priorities and shared global needs to inform Solve’s upcoming four 2019 challenges around health, sustainability, economic prosperity, and learning .  

Solve was formed out of the MIT President’s office to find social innovators with great ideas on how to tackle the world’s problems and link them to the technical capacities of the Institute and its partners to help scale up their impact.

Alexander Dale, Senior Officer for Solve’s Sustainability Community, commented, “Enel Foundation is one our members adding their technical knowledge to form a global network supporting the innovators we work with. Enel has a global reach in terms of being in so many different parts of the world and working on really core infrastructure, whether that is energy infrastructure, electricity or communications. That’s really important for us: to be able to think about how we could move ideas from a prototype or a pilot into the big, mainstream infrastructure that will reach millions of different people.”

Commenting the results of the workshop, Christian Zulberti, Head of Relations with Universities and Research Centers at Enel Foundation, noted, “Thanks to our membership in Solve we had the chance to engage colleagues from the Innovability Community of Enel Group’s different business units and participated companies, such as Open Fiber, to help shaping the much awaited 2019 Solve Challenges and suggesting new topics for 2020 Challenges”.

In 2018, the MIT Solve launched challenges connected to the Work of the Future, Frontlines of Health, Teachers and Educators, Coastal communities. More than 1,150 innovators from 110 countries submitted their solutions to these global challenges. Out of 60 finalists, 33 Solver teams were selected for the one-on-one follow up and Enel Foundation was one of the members involved in mentoring the Solver teams.

All of the MIT Solve’s challenges are deeply connected with the the UN Sustainable Development Goals and aim to support the 2030 Agenda.