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Aeroporti di Roma: A runway to the future

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23 March 2023

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Emanuele Calà, Innovation & Quality Vice President of Aeroporti di Roma, tells International Airport Review about the airport’s first Corporate Venture Capital firm dedicated to innovation, ADR Ventures.

Over the last few years, Aeroporti di Roma (ADR) has increasingly invested in innovation. Bringing together a series of Italian and international actors to undertake an integrated journey aimed at creating an advanced innovation ecosystem and lead the transformation of airports into an inclusive hub, with platforms at the heart of technological developments. A place where new projects and ideas can be tested.

In this context, the last two years have certainly seen some significant steps forward: we established ADR’s Innovation Committee; formed our Innovation Cabin Crew made of 30 ambassadors from the company; we built partnerships with some of the most respected international players – including Plug & Play Tech Center and PWC; we promoted the creation of the network Airports for Innovation, together with AENA, Athens and Nice Airport; we launched our first global ‘Call 4 Ideas’ getting more then 100 project proposals, and opened ADR’s Innovation Hub – the first accelerator for start-ups located at the heart of an airport terminal in Europe, a space thought and designed for start-ups to fine-tune their projects since the very beginning, working closely with ADR’s mentors and employees, as well as with all the partners.

Now, as the first two milestones of 2023 in our innovation-oriented path, we have successfully created our first Corporate Venture Capital firm dedicated to innovation, ADR Ventures, and launched a second global Call for Ideas.