Cubbit wins and goes straight to Start Path’s Selection Day on November 29 in Miami
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#MastercardMIF2018 - Milan, October 10, 2018 – During Mastercard Innovation Forum, the winner of the Call4Ideas, a Mastercard initiative dedicated to Italian startups created less than five years ago e active in the FinTech, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Security and Smart City sectors.
Cubbit is the winning and awarded startup. The project proposed by Cubbit has been judged as the most innovative and is deeply involved in the sharing economy sector, a constantly growing reality, also in our country.
Cubbit is the first shared data center that recycles the resources of the internet unused by the users and transforms them in encrypted web services that can be offered to companies too. Cubbit technology bursts into the cloud global industry eliminating the main source of its problems: the centralized web farms. Cubbit replaces them with a distributed data center based on a peer-to-peer network made by domestic servers that uses the unlimited Wi-Fi connection of users during the hours when the connection remains unused, such as the night hours. Because of its design, it is cheap, scalable, encrypted and represents an innovative and extraordinary project in the ever-growing universe of the sharing economy.
The other Call4Ideas finalists:
It is a smartphone app created in Italy in 2017 by three youngsters of Dindaro Srl, innovative startup based in Rome.
The project has the aim to digitalize cash, converting small amounts, such as the ones coming from changes when making daily purchases, in digital currency stockpiled directly in an electronic wallet on the smartphone, to pile up the daily changes amounts altogether, eliminating the problem and nuisance of coins. Furthermore, it can be used to pay with the smartphone, through the sums stockpiled, transfer money p2p, charge up phone credit or cash in through IBAN.
Using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision, this project want to evolve physical stores focusing them on the customer. Through facial recognition of customers, it is possible to identify the products that they buy and place in their cart, in order to guarantee a fast and autonomous checkout without the need for the cashier.
The Jury
A technical jury of Mastercard experts, a team by Bocconi University of Milan, and members of the Mastercard Start Path global team, selected a shortlist of startups, from the ones that sent their candidacy to the Call4Ideas launched in July, choosing them as finalists. Yesterday, during a pitch competition at Mastercard Innovation Forum, the startups selected presented their proposals to the audience of the event, made by representatives of both the Italian banking and retail environment. The audience attending the competition casted its real-time vote to select the winning startup, that will directly reach the final stage of the Selection Day organized by Start Path in Miami on November 29, a challenge where to face the world’s most innovative startups and aspire to join the Start Path program.
The Call4Ideas program
Call4Ideas initiative is result of a collaboration with Mastercard’s global program Start Path, dedicated to the support of startups that have recently started their business and that are developing state of the art solutions for commerce.
The Start Path program yearly receives an average of 1600 of applications and interesting proposals, and around 40 of those make the cut every year to start working for the network. Today, more than 170 startups work with Mastercard and those who participated to this program received more than 1 billion dollars of investments.
“We created the Start Path global program in 2014, with the aim of supporting the new emerging realities in their growth and, with great success, we were able to extend the program also to Italy” commented Michele Centemero, Country Manager Mastercard Italy. “Today we are proud to watch these startups here on stage, presenting their innovative ideas to an audience of professionals of this sector. Call4Ideas not only represents an opportunity for newborn companies, but also for our customers that, as partners of the event, have the possibility to connect and engage the best startups and have access to the innovations coming from every part of the world”.
“The creation of a startup is no more only something for insiders and disjointed from the relevant economic system – states Stefano Caselli, Pro-Dean for international affairs – but constitutes one of the propulsive forces to produce innovation and promote the transformation of high-complexity sectors such as the financial one. Bocconi University is involved in the promotion of this process with several initiatives. The evolution of Fintech and the effective use of big data and artificial intelligence allow the protagonists of the market to reshape their offer plan and to adapt to the necessities of the final customer. This can be possible thanks to the widespread creativity common in teams of young entrepreneurs, which overcome national obstacle and work in university classes, in incubators and international competitions.
-FINE-
Mastercard:
Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a company that operates in the technology for international payments sector.
It directs the fastest network of payment elaborations in the world, connecting consumers, financial institutes, traders, governments and companies in more than 210 countries and territories. The Mastercard products and solutions make daily business activities – such as shopping, traveling, directing an enterprise and directing finances – easier, safer, and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, @MastercardIT and participate in the discussion on Cashless Conversations Blog and register to receive the latest news.
Contacts:
Mastercard
Giuliana Abbate, Giuliana.Abbate@mastercard.com
FleishmanHillard
Laura Meroni, Tel +39 02 31804 707, laura.meroni@fleishmaneurope.com
Edoardo Grandi, Tel + 39 02 31804 710, edoardo.grandi@fleishmaneurope.com
Ilaria Carfì, Tel +39 02 31804 709, ilaria.carfi@fleishmaneurope.com
