Press Area / March 09 - Torino and Piemonte ICT excellence at Cebit

10 leading companies at Cebit 2009 come from Piemonte – North Western Italian region hosting a promising and highly qualified Ict cluster. They are exhibiting at the “Future Park” pavillion, in the Italian area coordinated by ICE (Italian Institute for Foreign Trade, Hall 9 - stand B09). Their participation is being organised as part of Think Up, project promoting abroad a selection of top class Piedmontese ICT firms and offering international buyers a fast track to contact them and establish collaborative relations. The project is promoted by the Torino Chamber of Commerce with the support of Piemonte Regional Authority and is managed by professional partners: Torino Wireless Foundation, CSI-Piemonte (Consortium for Information Systems) and Piemonte Agency.

Piemonte is taking part at CeBIT for the fourth time to show the updated innovative technologies developed in the region, among which those related to WEB 2.0 (online applications allowing the interaction between the site and its users) and to the new Wireless M.E.S.H networks.

On March 4th, Think Up project and its excellences will be introduced during the technical seminar “Future Talk”. This will be also the occasion to present 2 events that Torino will host in the next months: TOSM - Torino Software & Systems Meeting (26-28 May) and Telemobility - Telematics & Infomobility Forum (15-16 October) dedicated to the Intelligent Transport Systems segment. Always on March 4th, five Think Up companies - Incomedia, , Intellisemantic, Minteos, Neagen and Revenge – will illustrate their new solutions at the forum "Examples of the Italian ICT Industry".

Piemonte, in particular its capital city Torino and its province, is home to numerous ICT enterprises, highly competitive in terms of variety, quality and reliability. The production range embraces all segments of the regional manufacturing tradition and services: finance, aerospace, industrial automation, automotive, , home & building automation, security, e-government, e-health, games and multimedia, hardware, firmware & software, telecommunications and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). The sector consistsof more than 13,100 companies - 65% of them are concentrated in the Torino area accounting for 3% of the entrepreneurial fabric of the region.

The number of employees in the ICT field counts around 110,000., that is to say a mid 6% of the total regional occupation share. The sector is also supported by over 2,000 ICT researchers (almost 20% of the Italian total), 700 of whom in the wireless area. Piemonte, in fact, invests 2.5% of its GDP in innovation, and, with a network that comprise universities, more than 200 research centres of international standing (TILab – the Telecom Italia Group R&D centre – Microsoft Technology Centre of Torino, CRF – Fiat R&D Centre, GM Powertrain Europe, to name but a few) and 380 laboratories, is capable of high quality enquires and able to face the global market with innovative scientific and technical knowledge and highly skilled human resources.

Press Office:
Piemonte Agency - Francesca Corsini, Francesca Tessitore
tel. +39 0116700.665/662 francesca.corsini@centroestero.org www.centroestero.org