FS Italiane, the first Innovation Hub of the Group’s Innovation Network at Termini
Rome, 20th December 2020
Today, FS Italiane opens its first Innovation Hub, located within Roma Termini. On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the largest station in the country in terms of size and traffic, FS Italiane kicks off another great project and inaugurates the main hub of the Group’s Innovation Network.
The Innovation Hub in Roma Termini will function as a control room with the role of directing and coordinating the activities of the other hubs that will be implemented in the coming years, extended all throughout Italy and that will work on thematic innovation programmes.
Indeed, inaugurated today along with the Termini Station Innovation Hub was also the first of the satellite hubs of FS Italiane’s Innovation Network, this time at the Naples San Giovanni a Teduccio campus of the Federico II University of Naples, which will be managed in collaboration with Campania NewSteel, an incubator promoted and endorsed by Città della Scienza and the Federico II University.
The project involves the construction of spaces in which companies, institutions and investors meet and collaborate with young innovators and startups, with the aim of harnessing new business opportunities and seeking out innovative solutions able to respond to new technological challenges imposed by the market.
Innovation Hubs are places of sharing and fusion of ideas, home to a real innovation ecosystem, where companies can learn from startups how to integrate new technologies into their industrial processes.
For FS Italiane, innovation, technology and digitisation all offer huge potential for change and discontinuity, being fundamental factors in promoting sustainable development and increasing people’s well-being.
The creation of a network of innovation comprised of various Innovation Hubs distributed throughout the national territory heads precisely in this direction: applying the paradigm of open innovation that has become essential in order to encourage the creation and experimentation of new business, processes, products or services with the objective of consolidating an entrepreneurial culture oriented towards innovation.
By 2023, in addition to those in Rome and Naples, FS Italiane plans to open another five thematic Innovation Hubs dedicated respectively to the themes of Smart City and Tourism in: Reggio Calabria (Protection of the Territory), Puglia (Logistics and Freight), Milan (industry), Turin (Mobility) and Bologna (Agrifood).
The layout
The function that the Innovation Hubs perform, as places of sharing and the fusion of ideas, is rendered in the style by which they are distinguished. The spaces are conceived and designed to increase opportunities for interaction, fostering effective cross-contamination and mutual exchange of ideas.
The Innovation Hubs of Roma Termini and Naples are characterised by temporary and flexible work areas, able to be quickly reconfigured as an open space with traditional work stations, in which the tables can be easily moved and rearranged according to needs, to be transformed into spaces to come together, into a traditional meeting room, closed rooms for stand-up meetings, pods for informal meetings, a phone booth for more privacy or greater focus, along with a relaxation zone and a break area.
The colours and the way in which they are perceived also help to encourage and stimulate the development and sharing of ideas. Finally, the suspended ceiling – inspired by the game of Mikado – represents in a visually captivating way the creative and innovative process that underlies the Innovation Hubs.
From the perspective of environmental sustainability, the Innovation Hubs are eco-friendly spaces, designed to follow precise green guidelines. The extensive windows make the most of natural lighting, whilst only LED bulbs are used indoors, having an energy consumption that is significantly lower than traditional options. In addition, innovative paints with antibacterial properties able to sanitise the environments have been used. Even the furnishing comes from processes with reduced environmental impact, favouring natural materials that are recyclable and which avail of compact and light packaging.