On October 20 2022, the first Italian Culture and Innovation Hub - INNOV.IT, which integrates the Italian Cultural Institute, Agenzia ICE's foreign investment attraction and innovation desks and the new Innovation Center, opened in San Francisco on October 2022: an initiative promoted by our Embassy in Washington and the Consulate General in San Francisco.

The goal of the project is to build an interface between the Italian innovation world and the innovation ecosystem in Silicon Valley, California and with other U.S. tech hubs.

The project, which responds to concrete needs of our national economic and technological system, is part of the initiatives for the integrated promotion of the Sistema Paese, with a view to business matching and investment attraction, with the aim of making INNOVIT a catalyst for the development of both public and private national realities: investment funds, startups and corporations, research centers and universities, local authorities (regions, metropolitan cities, agencies), with a view to supporting internationalization, enhancing the excellence and competitiveness of Italian scientific research and strengthening our capacity for technology transfer and innovation.

INNOV.IT has been hosting since the end of 2021 the Institute of Culture and the two ICE desks, which, together with the Consulate General, have been carrying out activities and events since the Hub opened. As of November this year, the national project is completed with the start of the provision of private services of the Innovation Hub located at 710 Sansome Street in San Francisco: an area of the city highly symbolic for the history of compatriots in California, representing an ideal nexus between the past and the future, was chosen for INNOVIT's headquarters.

"Completed today in San Francisco is a project of strategic importance for our country, promoted and strongly supported by the Embassy and our Consulate General," stressed the Ambassador of Italy to the United States, Mariangela Zappia . "The INNOV.IT innovation center will provide high-quality services to companies, start-ups, research centers, venture capital and national and local entities. It will be at the center of a system of relationships, training and promotion focused on innovation and hinged in the most relevant area in the world for innovative sectors and concentration of capital. Thanks to INNOV.IT, Italy will be able to seize all the opportunities of this era of change in every field. It is a modern and flexible tool, first and unique in our foreign network, which will combine our traditional cultural soft power with smart and cutting-edge services and activities, to enhance the most original ideas and solutions offered by our country and push our entrepreneurs and researchers to present themselves to raise capital and knowledge useful to generate new Italian unicorns."