Francesco graduated with a law degree from the University of Trento Law School and was admitted to practice law in Italy. He was a Senior Intellectual Asset Manager at the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Department of the Fondazione Torino Wireless, a dedicated structure for the professional and vertically-integrated management of all the steps of production and commercialisation of IPR.

He co-authored a book on technology transfer agreements and is a regular speaker in workshops and conferences on intellectual property, licensing and technology management. He is the CEO of MITO Technology and oversees the licensing activities of the company, particularly for evaluation of inbound technologies and negotiation of IP transactions with licensees. He has an extensive experience in dealing with universities and public research institutions and managing internal organisational issues.

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Massimiliano Granieri is professor of Comparative Private Law at the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering of the University of Brescia where he teaches Business Law and Intellectual Property (art. 6, para 1., l. 240/2010). He has been adjuct faculty at LUISS Guido Carli Department of Management and Widener Law School. He was visiting scholar at the George Washington University National Law Center (Washington, D.C.) and at the Jamail Center for Legal Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, School of Law. Massimiliano earned a J.D. (cum laude) in Comparative Law from the LUISS Guido Carli Law School. He received a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law; a Ph.D. in Comparative law from the University of Florence and was the Jemolo Fellow at the Nuffield College, Oxford.

In his professional life, Massimiliano has been admitted to practice in Italy as an attorney-at-law (Rome bar). Former Head of the Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer group at the Fondazione Torino Wireless, he was counsel with the Office of Technology Transfer of University of California (Oakland), and past board member of ARTI Puglia, Fondazione Felice Chirò, Mekna, ASTPPRoton. He is currently board member of NETVAL (the Italian Network for the Valorization of Research). He acted several times as consultant for the European Patent Office and was the member of the IPR Expert group of the European Commission (DG Enterprise) for the exploitation of patents.

Massimiliano has published extensively in the field of economic analysis of law, antitrust, intellectual property and contract law. He is author of five books and authored an co-authored more than a hundred of book chapters and scientific articles.

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Leonardo Massa is Investment Manager at Progress Tech Transfer.

Previously, he was working in M Ventures, the Corporate Ventures fund of Merck KGaA. Before that, Leonardo worked as an inhouse consultant at Compagnie Financière Richemont SA, where he conducted various projects in technology transformation and innovation.

Leonardo holds a MBA from Collège des Ingénieurs in Paris (France), an M.Sc. in Nanoscale engineering from École Centrale de Lyon and INSA Lyon, and a B.Sc. in Materials and Nanotechnologies engineering from Politecnico di Milano.

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Andrea Basso, PhD (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL CH and Stanford Univ. USA)
Is currently serving as CTO of MITO Technology. He serves a senior expert for the European Commission and for WIPO.
In previous positions served as CEO of Sisvel Technology and as CTO of the Sisvel group where he oversaw evolution of Sisvel strategic technology areas and worked on business strategy and new market development.

He has 147 granted patents. He has been instrumental in the support of patent litigation in outstanding cases. He has been consulting as patent developer and he is the recipient of the 2012 AT&T Intellectual Property Award for outstanding contributions to Intellectual Property.

While in Bell Labs and AT&T Labs –Research USA, as Research Manager has developed 22 years of research experience he led research on multimedia technologies and he has developed innovative services and architectures for IPTV and Over The Top (OTT).

Andrea has been involved in the development of standards in several international bodies including IETF, ISO/MPEG, 3GPP, ITU-T and IMTC.

Andrea has published 60+ papers, several books chapters. He is a frequent speaker in international conferences and events.

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Michele Costabile is professor of Marketing and Entrepreneruship at the LUISS “Guido Carli” University – Rome, where he also is the Director of X.ITE, a Research Center on Economic Behavior and Technology and Member of the Board of Directors. He has an extensive teaching and research experience in Italy and abroad (Kellogg – Northwestern University; Harvard Business School). He published 100 + textbooks, handbooks, essays and research papers.

Michele Costabile has been advisor for many Italian and global companies. He has also served as Director or Chairman of the Board for many companies, and as CEO and Board Chairman (2010-2014) of an italian venture capital company. He supervised more than 30 start-up capital investments and exits (e.g. EOS sold
to Clovis Oncology; Banzai IPO – now listed as ePrice).

He co-founded and chaired Techgarage Association, committed to foster start-up entrepreneurship and to organize business plan contests in Italy; he has been an active member at AIFI (Associazione Italiana del Private Equity e Venture Capital); the Italian outlook on start-ups and venture capital; member of the CNR
(National Research Council) Spin Off Committee.

As board director at L.COM, he co-founded the first Italian university alumni venture capital investment club (LUISS Alumni for Growth – LA4G). He is currently member of the management team at “Progress TT Fund”, the first Italian technology transfer fund on “sustainability” patents and technologies.

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Alberto spent more than fifteen years in Value Partners Management Consulting, a leading advisory boutique where he gained extensive and proven credibility in strategy-setting through dozens of CXO-driven engagements in operations, business development, both at Corporate and at Business level. He
focused on Consumer / Industrial Goods, Technology, Healthcare, Energy and Utilities.

Prior to Value Partners, he was in London for in UBS Warburg Investment Banking, with focus on the M&A for the technology sector.

Prior to that he spent four years at CERN in Geneva, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics Board member in selected companies on behalf of Private Equity Investors.

Active Angel-Investor, directly and alongside Private Equity Investors and Family Offices (Italy, UK, Switzerland).

Alberto earned a Master Degree in Nuclear Engineering cum laude at Politecnico di Torino and an MBA at SDA Bocconi in Milan.

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Célia specialises in implementing open innovation through the use of public funding programmes such as Horizon 2020, the European Financial Tool for External Relations (including EuropeAid) and the European Structural and Investment Fund. Célia started her involvement with European projects in 2002, at the end of FP5. Since, she has written, managed and coordinated 15 projects worth typically over €1.5m each and involving on average 14 partners from the various EU Member and Associated Countries.

Célia is the coordinator of the H2020-funded PROGRESS-TT project (www.progresstt.eu) led by MITO on capacity building of technology transfer professionals. Previously, she was the coordinator of a EuropeAid Capacity Building and Technical Assistance project in Turkey on increasing the capacity of Turkish research actors to take part in FP7 and Horizon 2020 activities, of the “SMEtoLEAD” CSA aimed at building capacity for innovation in European SMEs and of the “Valor” Pro-Inno Europe project aimed at harmonising the European landscape for research results commercialisation. Célia also supported the coordination of the FP7 CSA “Commercialise” aimed at supporting the EC with the creation of a coaching programme for the H2020 SME instrument to boost the commercialisation of research results.

Throughout her career, Célia has worked with universities and the business community across Europe, advising on innovation and knowledge transfer and tackling skills development issues.

Célia holds two Masters’ degrees (Hons), in European Programmes & Policies from the University of Cergy-Pontoise (2002) and in International Policy and Diplomacy from Staffordshire University (2011). In 2013, she graduated with a Public Affairs Diploma (postgraduate) awarded with distinction by the UK Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

Célia is French, fluent in English and Italian, intermediate in Spanish and currently learning German.

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