SORRENTO – Politicians and tech leaders gathered in October for the inaugural G20 Innovation League, a competition between start-ups from around the world. Speakers stressed the need for a stronger influence on tech innovation from the public sphere, while cautioning about the perils of innovating at the expense of human wellbeing. 

 The atmosphere was charged with excitement as dozens of start-ups presented their tech to press and potential investors in venues overlooking the Bay of Naples.

 “Creativity is contagious,” Carlo Ferro, President of Italian Trade Agency quoted Einstein. The G20 “an arena to follow this advice.”

 The start-ups hailed from all over the world - from Africa Green Power based in DRC to HysenseBio in Korea, Waste4Change from Indonesia and Biosolvit from Brazil.

 Although the tech varied from apps to robots, common aims included reducing accidents, processing waste, freeing up people’s time and saving money. It was hard not to be inspired by the concrete proposals for a better world.

 But others warned of the hidden dangers in tech innovation without consideration of its fundamental purpose.

 “Technological progress is the most critical responsibility that we have today,” said Jose Treviño, the former Mexican foreign minister. But “if it’s not about wellbeing, it’s not worth the paper it is written on.”

Vittorio Bonori, Expert Partner of Bain & Company and host of the Artificial Intelligence category, expressed similar sentiments.

 “AI will bring amazing success and innovation in our lives," he said. “I want to pose the following question to everyone present - should data scientists embrace the Hippocratic Oath like doctors?”

 The 100 startups, 56 of whom attended in person, were split into five categories - Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smart Cities & Mobility, CleanTech, the Internet of Things (IoT) & Wearables, and Healthcare. The main event took place on Sunday, Oct. 31, beginning with opening speeches in the Tasso Communal Theatre.

 The Italian Foreign Minister, Luigi di Maio, highlighted the need for a “fairer, greener, more digitalised and inclusive society” and stated that in the digital revolution there must be “special attention to Italian SMEs.”

 According to the OECD, Italian SMEs generate 66.9 per cent of the overall value added in the national “non-financial business economy”, exceeding the EU average of 56.4 per cent. The share of employment generated by SMEs is also greater, at 78.1 per cent compared to the EU average of 66.6 per cent. Di Maio also mentioned the new Global Startup Programme – a project to help Italians increase business abroad.

  Vittorio Colao, former CEO of Vodafone and current Minister of Innovation for Italy iterated “creativity is a crucial means for modernising our governments and political systems,” while CEO of the National Fund for Innovation, Enrico Resmini, made his comments over livestream from Rome.

 “Innovation is dotted all over the world,” said Resmini, “and venture capital needs to connect between them.” He quoted that 75 per cent of top companies had a venture capital lead to make his point that “funding is instrumental to innovation.”

 “We have to challenge everything, challenge the status quo, reinvent business models, not look backwards,” enthused Brian Collie, Global Leader for Automotive & Mobility, Boston Consulting Group and the event's Smart Cities & Mobility presenter.

 “Every year we lose a city the size of Milan in terms of people lost to traffic accidents - 1.3million,” but “we can do things now in the year ahead that we weren’t able to do 5-10 years ago,” he said. AI, tech maturity, the increase in ride sharing and the commitment towards NetZero were all driving companies to “finally change.”

 Collie noted, however, that we “can’t underestimate the threat of unintended consequences.”

 Tim Good, Managing Director at Accenture, acknowledged that with change, especially advances in tech, often comes fear.

 "Trust and a sense of safety are critical for a thriving organisation.” Said Good. “Every leader, when digitally transforming their organisation, should ask – are they putting people at the centre?"

 The Accenture head said companies will need to "transform from economic institutions to a tone that is human-centred.”

 "Workers and consumers alike are demanding a new type of leadership," said Good, “sustainable and equitable for the workers.” People are not only wanting better working conditions for themselves, but also for the environment – and the mounting pressure means companies increasingly don’t have the option not to care.

 Instead of exploitation, companies must advance technologically to be more efficient and productive, says Good. “To thrive in constant change, organisations need to transform digitally to unlock human ingenuity.”

 He noted how the pandemic has “fast-tracked” the need for hybrid work and that “the future of work requires people to be productive anywhere.”

 Yet, the research shows only 30 per cent of people are confident that they have the right tech and tools to do their jobs remotely. The need for digital fluency requires tools, training, leadership and cultural support and Good emphasises, “a move from reactive to proactive management.”

 Following the speeches, the audience dispersed to the various venues, each dedicated to one of the five categories. The hopeful startups were allotted precisely five minutes each to present their company to the room. At the end of the day the venture capitalists voted for their favourite - via an app, naturally.

 This reporter heard the Smart Cities pitches in the morning and was particularly impressed by Plantx highly efficient food production from Japan and Bitsensing’s ‘radar based sensing technology’ to reduce road accidents. I then walked to the Hotel Continental to have a delicious lunch with the Healthcare startups, before listening their afternoon presentations. Some standout companies included Onward Arc Therapy from Switzerland, which addresses the huge unmet need for spinal cord injury treatment and Italy’s Symani, the world’s smallest wristed robotic instrumentation with 7 degrees of freedom – a fascinating invention to remove the natural tremor of the human surgeon’s hand during surgery. The surgeon still does the work, controlling the robot, but the robot makes the movements with perfect stillness and stableness.

 After the presentations, everyone went back in the Tasso Theatre to hear the winners - a first and second prize for each category. As well as a plaque, each winner also received a hand-thrown Sorrento plate decorated with painted lemons.

 In CleanTech, Russian startup Biomicrogels Group won first prize for their breakthrough technology for cleaning water. After having narrowly missed out on an award at Horizon 2020, the company’s director Alexander Khomik was elated, commenting “it is very hard to attract foreign investment as a startup in Russia” - something he hopes will change in the future.

 It was also a Russian startup that took home first prize in the AI category - Ntechlab. This new company has developed facial and vehicular recognition algorithms that are record-breaking in terms of both speed and accuracy.

 An Italian startup, Zerynth, won second most votes in the IoT and Wearables category. Their IoT platform is an 'ecosystem' of hardware-software tools which optimizes industrial processes, energy consumption, predictive maintenance, and the retrofit of industrial machines. The winner in this category was Poka, from Canada, which they describe as "Facebook for factories" - a communication system for use, literally, on an industrial scale.

 Indonesian company Nalagenetics came top in the Healthcare section, having created a customized prescription platform to offer tailor-made solutions according to the different needs of doctors, patients, and laboratories.

 In the Smart Cities and Mobility category, French startup Virtuo Technology took home the gold with their eco-friendly “car streaming” rental service. In the words of co-founder Karim Kaddoura, “streaming – you want it, you click it, you have it. Why wouldn’t you stream cars too? Car ownership will be the exception, this will be the norm.”

 “We owe it to ourselves, to the cities and to the planet,” he summarised.

 After the prize-giving and speeches, we heard from the official representative of the G20 incoming Indonesian Presidency, Semuel Pengerapan. He spoke via livestream from Bali, where next year’s summit will take place, with the intention to “uphold the high standard that the Italian Presidency has set on this event.” Pengerapan spoke of "a new partnership" between the two countries and said if we "recover together, we recover stronger."

 To offer final remarks about the event, the Italian Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Manlio Di Stefano gave a cheerful speech. "In last couple of days, a lively and exciting atmosphere has characterised Sorrento,” he said. "This flow of ideas will contribute to the search for innovate solutions to global challenges.”