The first prize of the Start Cup Campania 2020 edition goes to the team of the Department of Engineering of the Vanvitelli University.

The Start Cup Campania competition, the Business Plan Competition organized every year by the seven universities of the Campania region with the aim of supporting research and technological innovation aimed at economic development and the creation of companies with a high knowledge content, has ended. The competition is part of the National Award for Innovation, a similar competition organized at national level by the main Italian universities, in which the winners of the local editions take part.

During the 2020 edition of the Start Cup Campania, 43 projects were presented by as many teams belonging to the universities of the region. Among the ten projects that reached the final, the jury awarded the first prize to the EHPO (Energy Harvesting Power Optimizer) team of the Department of Engineering of the Vanvitelli University. The team was composed by Luigi Costanzo, research fellow, Nicola de Chiara, accountant and consultant expert in European financing, Alessandro Lo Schiavo, professor of electronics, Massimo Vitelli, professor of electrical engineering. The EHPO team presented a business idea for powering electronic devices for the Internet of Things, based on Energy Harvesting systems that recover Energy from the environment which otherwise would be wasted energy.

The jury was composed of experts in evaluating business projects mainly from the world of Venture Capital, business services, financial and local institutions, businesses and trade associations.