2024

The exhibition “Impression, Morisot” is the first major exhibition in Italy dedicated to Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) held at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa from 12 October 2024 to 23 February 2025.

Press Preview Thursday 10 October 2024 at 11.30 am. The exhibition is part of the calendar of official celebrations to mark the 150 th anniversary of Impressionism, included in the commemorative season initiated by the Museo d’Orsay in Paris, organised in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nice and with unpublished works from the heirs of Berthe Morisot.

The exhibition is a project by the Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura and Electa, who is also a publisher of the catalogue, supported by the Liguria Region and Genoa City Council, with the patronage of the French Embassy, and is curated by Marianne Mathieu, one of the most renowned experts on Berthe Morisot’s work and a scholar of the history of Impressionism, and protagonist of many scientific discoveries in this field.

More than 80 works, including paintings, etchings, watercolours and pastels, plus photographic and archive documents, many of which have never been seen before, provide an insight into the life of the artist, who managed to reconcile family life and an artistic career, and entertained fruitful relations not only with the greatest artists of the time such as Renoir, Monet, Manet and Degas, but also with intellectual figures such as Mallarmé and Zola. The exhibition features scientific innovations related to her stays on the Riviera between 1881-1882 and 1888-1889 and the influence of the Mediterranean light on her work.

From October 16-20, 2024, the Mondadori Group will participate in the 76th edition of the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Italy will be Guest of Honor for the first time in 36 years. This prestigious event represents an important showcase for Italian publishing, with more than 230 publishing houses and literary agents involved. We will be present with our publishing houses and several leading authors in Hall 5.0, together with other important compatriot publishers and the Italian Collective Stand organized by ICE-Agenzia in collaboration with the Italian Publishers Association (AIE).

The space dedicated to Italian publishers, which this year reaches record dimensions with 668 square meters and 131 exhibitors, will be inaugurated on Oct. 16 at 10:30 a.m. in the presence of the Italian and German Ministers of Culture, Alessandro Giuli and Claudia Roth, together with the Italian Ambassador to Germany Armando Varricchio, ICE-Agenzia Director General Lorenzo Galanti, AIE President Innocenzo Cipolletta and fair director Juergen Boos.

The Frankfurter Buchmesse program includes a packed schedule of meetings and round tables involving all professionals in the publishing supply chain. The Mondadori Group’s participation in this important event represents a unique opportunity to strengthen the international presence of its authors and promote the quality and diversity of Italian publishing production.

Here is the full program of Italy Guest of Honor 2024

Mondadori Group publishing houses at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2024

During the fair, the Group’s leading publishing houses, including Mondadori, Einaudi, Rizzoli, Piemme, Sperling & Kupfer, De Agostini, Star Comics and Mondadori Electa, will be present with meetings and appointments. New publishing titles will be presented and internationally established authors will be promoted, as well as new emerging voices.

The presence at Buchmesse is a tangible sign of the Mondadori Group’s ongoing commitment to enhancing Italian creativity and literature globally. With the support of ICE and AIE, dialogue is promoted among industry professionals from around the world to help consolidate Italy’s position as a leading player in the international publishing scene.

“AIE has promoted a program of professional meetings that gives voice to the entire book supply chain, recounts its excellence, and confronts great international professionals: Italia Ospite d’Onore will thus be the story of the authors who make Italian literature known abroad, but also the story of a strong, innovative and future-oriented industry that works on technological frontiers and questions the changes our profession faces, in a continuous dialogue with the rest of the world.” Innocenzo Cipolletta, President of AIE.

Milan celebrates Enrico Baj (Milan, 31 October 1924 – Vergiate, 16 June 2003), one of the masters of the Italian and international neo-avant-garde, with a large retrospective as one of the protagonists of the autumn exhibitions, designed to revisit all the themes and subjects of his long and multifaceted career. Baj returns to Palazzo Reale in the Sala delle Cariatidi, exactly one hundred years after his birth and twelve years after the exhibition I Funerali dell’anarchico Pinelli, in the same room, and which, for the first time, will be integrated into an anthological itinerary and in close dialogue with other works by the master.

Promoted by the Comune di Milano-Cultura and produced by Palazzo Reale with Electa, the project is curated by Chiara Gatti and Roberta Cerini Baj and features almost fifty works spanning a time period from the early 1950s to the dawn of the 2000s, covering the artist’s phases of research and involvement with different movements over time: from the recovery of the Dada movement and Surrealism to the modes of Informal art, from the proximity to the Nordic CoBrA group to the genesis of the Nuclear art movement, which Baj founded in Milan with Sergio Dangelo in 1951. Starting from the gestural abstraction of his beginnings, passing through the birth of his larval anthropomorphic figures and the eruption of the liquefied mountains in the magmatic body of the Generals, the exhibition will touch on the parody of extraterrestrial invasions to arrive at the Meccano army and the animated world of chests of drawers and trumeaus.

His characters, which have entered popular imagination, Dames and Generals, Ultrabodies, Mirrors, Furniture and the monsters of the Apocalypse will animate a carousel of creatures from the surrealist and sci-fi universe of an artist who used irony and the grotesque as a tool to dismantle bourgeois conformism and take a stand against all forms of established power.

His famous aesthetics of trinkets and trimmings, of tassels and shiny buttons like insignia on the truncated chests of his emblazoned soldiers, will be the thread that will stitch together, in sections, the enormous themes of Baj’s poetics, freed from a rigid chronological sequence or genre, with continuous cross-references between art and literature, colours and words, following a sort of script that will suggest a theatrical time and space to the spectator, given even the setting.

Narae, the new app that allows readers to immerse themselves in the fascinating world of webnovel romance, is here. The result of a collaboration between the Mondadori Group and Bookrepublic, Narae offers an unprecedented reading experience to all fans of this new narrative genre, which is rapidly establishing itself from Asia all the way to Europe.

With Narae you can read stories divided into over a hundred short episodes, with new releases every week. The catalogue includes a rich variety of genres and tropes – romance subcategories – capable of satisfying all readers with a passion for Fantasy Romance, Historical Romance, Contemporary Romance, Boys’ Love and much more.

Already available to download from App Store and Google Play, Narae launched in Italy and France at the same time. The stories on the app, currently written by Korean authors, are available for the first time in Italian and French, thanks to a team of qualified translators.

“The continued growth of the romance and webnovel market has demonstrated the enormous potential this narrative form can have in Western markets. A trend that we are confident will also be followed in Italy and France,” said Marco Ferrario, CEO of Bookrepublic Webnovels, the startup that runs Narae. “Looking to the future, our goal is to continue to expand the catalogue and explore further opportunities worldwide, to establish Narae as the leading platform for webnovel romance in Europe, investing in quality content, translations and strategic partnerships that will drive sustained growth,” Ferrario concluded.

Narae’s catalogue of stories, written exclusively by Korean authors, will also be continuously expanded with the creation of original webnovels produced and written by Italian and French authors.

“We are thrilled to launch Narae on the Italian market and to bring the magic of webnovel romance to an audience that until now has had difficulty finding this content in Italian and French,” said Didier Borg, Managing Director of Narae. “Our goal is to offer readers a smooth and engaging reading experience, and we are confident that our selection will win over Italian fans of romance and K-culture,” Borg concluded.

For information: www.narae.eu/it/.

Segrate, 1 October 2024 – The Mondadori Group announces that Mondadori Media has today completed – in execution of the binding offer signed and disclosed on 22 July – the acquisition of 51% of the share capital of Fatto in casa da Benedetta S.r.l. (formerly Waimea S.r.l.), which holds all the intellectual property and economic exploitation rights pertaining to the image of Benedetta Rossi, as well as all the social media assets and the related content library.

The price of the acquisition, paid in full in cash, is € 6.9 million and reflects an enterprise value for 100% of the company, on a cash & debt free basis, of € 13.5 million.

The transaction, which sees Benedetta Rossi and Marco Gentili (through Maui Media) keeping a 49% stake in the company and remaining executive directors, is part of a targeted strategy to consolidate Mondadori Media’s role as a leading multimedia player in food & cooking, a driving sector for the country’s economy and one of Italy’s distinguishing features worldwide.

A highly successful cookbook author and star of TV programmes dedicated to the world of cooking, Benedetta Rossi is Italy’s most important creator in the food sector, a point of reference for over 17 million social media followers and 4 million unique monthly website users.
Through this acquisition Mondadori Media strengthens, therefore, in a synergistic and integrated way, its own position in the sector, where it already operates with GialloZafferano, the most-followed food media brand in Italy, and Zenzero, the talent agency that manages the best creators in the sector. This strategic partnership, moreover, enables the Group to become one of the world’s most important social media players in food, thanks to a total audience of over 87 million cooking enthusiast followers reached jointly by Benedetta Rossi and GialloZafferano globally.
Thanks to the synergies with GialloZafferano – in terms of audience, content production and know-how – Mondadori Media will focus, moreover, on the creation of increasingly innovative content, to boost the success of both brands, in Italy and abroad, and offer high-impact special projects and solutions to partner companies.

In terms of future developments, Mondadori Media will provide its team and expertise to promote Benedetta Rossi’s characteristics and core values with the aim of consolidating the brand Fatto in casa da Benedetta as well as launching its growth in new sectors. Strategic investments are planned to explore sectors adjacent to the world of food, with the aim of diversifying the business model and expanding the range on offer.

“With today’s signing Marco and I are writing a new page of our story, to transform what we’ve built into an even more robust company. After an initial phase that was highly satisfying and full of emotions, our ambition is to achieve even more challenging results, while still focusing on the primary objective of being close to, and actually helping, our audience”, commented Benedetta Rossi.

“For years our group has collaborated with Benedetta Rossi and Marco Gentili in making highly successful books. We have thus established a very strong relationship of trust and respect, which will also be fundamental to this new collaboration. We will provide them with our skills and passion to ensure that their project becomes even more of a point of reference for the many Italians who follow Benedetta Rossi every day with great fondness and trust”, comments Andrea Santagata, Chief Executive Officer of Mondadori Media, who is also Chairman of the company Fatto in casa da Benedetta.

Lastly, and as already announced, it should be noted that the terms of the transaction also provide for a variable component (so-called earn-out) – to be defined on the basis of the results of the two-year period 2023-2024 and of the financial year 2026 – the value of which, also due a contractual “cap” mechanism, is estimated to be € 3.2 million.
The agreements signed also provide for put & call options on a further 19% stake in Fatto in casa da Benedetta‘s share capital (exercisable after the approval of the 2028 financial statements), the exercise terms/strike price of which are linked to the company’s performance (turnover and EBITDA) in 2028.
Exercising these options would allow Mondadori Media to increase its stake to 70%, while keeping Benedetta Rossi and Marco Gentili shareholders at 30%, consistent with the long-term strategic partnership established by the transaction.

The partnership between McDonald’s and GialloZafferano, Italy’s most popular food media brand, has been renewed for the sixth consecutive year. This partnership, which has led to sales of 45 million sandwiches, is now returning with a new edition of McChicken Creations: two tasty recipes inspired by the original McChicken, available in all of the over 700 restaurants until 28 October.

The two variants boast high-quality Italian ingredients that enhance the classic 100% Italian, free-range, GMO-free chicken breast supplied by Amadori and the bread produced in Italy by Bimbo. The new recipe for 2024, McChicken Delizioso, combines crispy bacon and Italian artichokes, along with “Grana Padano PDO” artichoke sauce; McChicken Gustoso is also back in a Wrap version with crispy bacon, Italian red cabbage and Pecorino Romano DOP & pepper sauce.

The McChicken Creations reaffirm McDonald’s commitment to the Italian food supply chain year after year: in 2023, the company invested around 415 million euro in the sector. McDonald’s commitment is also reflected in its strong ties with the Protection Consortia, with which – thanks to the valuable support of the Qualivita Foundation – it has been working since 2008. Since then, 21 PDO and PGI ingredients have been introduced into McDonald’s menus, included in more than 45 recipes, with a total of 7,000 tons of raw materials used.

The McChicken Creations were conceived by McDonald’s and GialloZafferano, which created two recipes that showcase Made in Italy excellence.

“We are proud to re-launch such an important project for McDonald’s. For six years, the McChicken Creations initiative has seen us unite with GialloZafferano in the goal of creating recipes that showcase the quality and taste of Made in Italy ingredients,” remarks Giorgia Favaro, CEO of McDonald’s Italy. “This annual initiative not only strengthens our connection with Italy, but also reaffirms our concrete commitment to supporting the agri-food sector. Partly thanks to the collaboration with the Qualivita Foundation, over the past 15 years our support has enabled us to highlight local excellence, bringing PDO and GI-certified Italian products to our customers’ trays.”

“GialloZafferano’s partnership with McDonald’s is a truly successful project to which we are particularly committed,” comments Andrea Santagata, CEO of Mondadori Media. “It perfectly represents some of the key elements that make up our brand’s DNA. These include always offering products that are tasty and accessible to everyone, combining Italian character with innovation, and dialoguing with and entertaining our target audience by developing new communication languages and formats,” Santagata concludes.

The new edition of the McChicken Creations was presented today at a special event at the GialloZafferano headquarters, attended by Giorgia Favaro, CEO of McDonald’s Italy, Andrea Santagata, CEO of Mondadori Media, Nicola Lussana, CEO of Mediamond, Mauro Rosati, General Manager of the Qualivita Foundation, Stefano Berni, General Manager of the Consorzio di Tutela Grana Padano, and Gianni Maoddi, Chairman of the Consorzio di Tutela Pecorino Romano.

The event also involved GialloZafferano’s top food creators, including Sebastian Fitarau, Luisa Orizio – Allacciate il grembiule, Angello Coassin – Cooking with Bello, Gessica Runcio – Le ricette da Gessica, Andriana Kulchytska and Dany Resconi, who collaborated on the project with a series of exclusive content posted on social media.

The outstanding presenters were the two faces of the Le Iene TV show, Veronica Ruggeri and Stefano Corti, who conducted the event with their distinctive style, involving speakers and participants.

All the activities and visibility plan for the McChicken Creations were developed together with Brand On Solutions, Mediamond’s project area, with the coordination of OMD and in partnership with Leo Burnett, on all digital channels of Giallozafferano, from the website to all social media profiles – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube –, and the app, with the addition of push notifications targeted at McDonald’s drive-to-store and drive-to-app.

INTERNI is once again this year participating in a Press Café organised as part of Cersaie 2024 in Bologna (23–27 September), the international exhibition of ceramics for architecture and bathroom furnishings. For the occasion, Mondadori Group’s interiors and contemporary design magazine presents The good city: for responsible and generous architecture with speaker Alfonso Femia, an architect and founder of Atelier(s) Alfonso Femia AF517 with offices in Genoa, Milan and Paris. Much of his design and philosophical work is dedicated to water and the architecture of Mediterranean cities.

Along with journalist Patrizia Catalano, Alfonso Femia will speak about the importance of water, a resource that should be everyone’s right but which is often wasted on the well-being of a small part of the population while it is scarce in many countries around the world. The conversation will also highlight how collective awareness of the value of this supreme commodity can lead us to reconsider our values (even those we believe to be inalienable) and imagine new spaces and projects for cities that are made for everyone.

The good city: for responsible and generous architecture will be held tomorrow, Tuesday 24 September at 3 p.m. at the Press Café (Agorà dei Media – Mall 29/30). Gilda Bojardi, director of the INTERNI system will open the event.

The magazine is also celebrating its 70^th anniversary with a special display in the Lounge Bar Gardens 25/26 customised with 70 covers. These will then be distributed in poster format at the INTERNI stand.

For information www.internimagazine.it

INTERNI

A monthly magazine with a circulation of 50,000 copies, publishing began in 1954 as the first Italian periodical dedicated to interior decoration. Today INTERNI is one of the main communication tools in contemporary Italian and international design, essential for professionals and design enthusiasts. In 2024 it will be celebrating its first seventy years, during which it has been fortunate enough to share in the fantastic and adventurous history of Italian furniture and interior design. It has closely followed the growth expressed by design through the intuition and work of brilliant cultural figures, capable and courageous architects, designers and entrepreneurs. In the early 1990s, the monthly magazine became part of Mondadori Group, Italy’s leading publishing group, and a system of parallel publications have developed over time under the editorship of Gilda Bojardi, transforming the magazine from elite media to mass media. Activities by INTERNI also include the development and coordination of events and exhibitions organised to foster interaction between the different people involved in design, production and distribution. The famous FuoriSalone, an urban event that enlivens the city of Milan during the week of Salone del Mobile, was organized by INTERNI in 1990. It celebrated its 30^th edition in 2021 with the publication of Volume XXX-Y 30 anni di FuoriSalone | 1990-2020 Milano Design Stories (Electa). Following the start of publication of INTERNI in China (2015), the expansion of international editions is planned. INTERNI is a communications partner of the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2025 Osaka | The Ideal City.

Power Talent Agency, part of Mondadori Media, sees the arrival of three new creators who will enrich the agency’s communication potential, particularly in the wellness, beauty and lifestyle space.
Power Talent Agency, which can count on a roster of 30 talents and a total of 25 million followers, stands out for the ability and strength with which it is able to communicate the values and uniqueness of its people, creating synergies with the Mondadori Media brands of reference – The Wom and MypersonalTrainer – and offering a wide range of opportunities.

The three new talents
Among the new additions is Carola Chiusano, a real estate agent, entrepreneur and influencer, who is an expert on the most intimate and substantial asset of Italian culture: the home. Carola has more than 15 years of experience and uses her expertise to show this world to her fanbase of almost 80,000 followers. Her mission is the ‘Social reEvolution‘ of the real estate sector: an innovator of house tours, which have now become her trademark, she has reinvented the idea of the real estate agent through fresh, engaging and spontaneous communication. Not just houses though, Carola is also passionate about design, fashion and travel. She loves exploring new destinations, documenting her trips with personal stories that convey the charm of the places she visits. Her passion for fashion is reflected in her impeccable outfits that range from the most elegant to the most casual trends, always with a touch of class and originality. Carola joins The Power of Art, the spin-off of Power Talent Agency that is based on inspiration, art, creativity and entrepreneurship.

Whereas Angelica Amodei, professional journalist, health and beauty expert and Beauty Trainer at MypersonalBeauty, is strengthening the wellness sector of Power Talent Agency. She shares daily healthy eating, wellness and beauty videos on her social media with her 41,000 followers to spread the rules for a healthy lifestyle. In addition, Angelica is a guest and moderator at major events related to the world of food and more. Among her most important collaborations is a weekly video column entitled Sorsi di Benessere for the Italpress news agency. She is the author of two books on the subject of proper hydration: La Salute nel Bicchiere and Idratarsi a Tavola. Angelica is often a TV guest on various Rai and Mediaset programmes. She has edited a special column for Le fake news del benessere for Unomattina estate 2024 on Rai 1. Her experience enhances the Power for Wellness, a spin-off dedicated to the world of wealthcare with the aim of creating a perfect balance between body and mind.

Among the new talents joining Power Talent Agency is Veronica Rocca who, thanks to a long period of studying, has developed a strong passion for facial anatomy and the world of cosmetics. Her talent has led her to collaborate with renowned professionals in the field, delving into the causes of facial blemishes and how to treat them. With a solid fanbase of 136,000 followers, Veronica has become a benchmark in the beauty industry, helping women rediscover and enhance their beauty without resorting to cosmetic surgery. During her studies, Veronica developed innovative self-massage protocols: proprioceptive and postural exercises aimed at natural facial rejuvenation without the use of scalpels or needles. Combining science with beauty, she thus founded FaceTraining^®: a revolutionary set of techniques to be integrated into a daily skincare routine, designed to offer everyone greater freedom and confidence when caring for their face. Veronica, who already collaborates with The Wom, joins one of the latest spin-offs created by Power Talent Agency: W Power. This section has a dual spirit: its talents promote the values of Diversity & Inclusion, Self care and Anti-stereotypes, not forgetting passions from makeup to skin and body care to trends and fashion.

Mondadori Group, Italy’s largest book publisher, presents Audiobooks in the Dark, a sensory journey dedicated to the accessibility and inclusiveness of audio storytelling.

The initiative, which will take place on Monday 23 September at Fondazione Istituto dei Ciechi in Milan, Via Vivaio 7, aims to raise awareness of the importance of universal, inclusive access to culture and reading through the potential of audio books.

Participants will experience an immersive journey developed in collaboration with the Foundation, in which listening will be the key feature.

The event is dedicated to audiobook listeners of all ages, but also to enthusiasts, people curious to experience this type of reading and anyone who loves stories and wants to discover a new way to access them.

Event Schedule

‘Audiobooks in the Dark’ will be held in three sessions on Monday 23 September at 3 pm, 5 pm and 7 pm.
Each session will begin with a talk on audiobooks by special guests, including Chiara Anicito — a writer, content creator and reader of audiobooks by Cristina Cassar Scalia (Einaudi author) — and Martina Levato — a content creator and audiobook voice who will present a preview of the audiobook of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Mondadori).
Linus, a radio presenter and voice of the audiobook What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Murakami Haruki (Einaudi), will also be present at the 3 pm and 5 pm talks.
The meeting will be moderated by Alessandro Barbaglia, an author, podcaster and audiobook narrator. Barbaglia is one of the authors of the Ossigeno series by Mondadori Ragazzi, which offers a series of highly readable stories for middle school children accustomed to quick forms of narration, from social media to video games to TV series. In their audiobook format, the titles in the series acquire an additional level of accessibility, so that everyone can enjoy them.

At the end of the event, participants will be guided through the unique experience of Dialogue in the Dark, presented by the Fondazione Istituto dei Ciechi. In this unique opportunity, people can experience how they can interact with the world around them without sight, deepening the crucial role of the senses in everyday experience.

Participation is free of charge: booking is necessary via the website EventBrite. Places at each session are limited.

Link to Dialogue in the Dark
https://www.dialogonelbuio.org/index.php/it/il-percorso

PLAI, the  Mondadori Group’s startup accelerator aimed at transforming ideas based on the use of artificial intelligence into successful entrepreneurial ventures, has successfully reached a new milestone just a few months after its launch: in 60 days, since the start of the “call 4 startups”, 520 applications have been received.

After an initial selection of 203 startups, only 18 were given the opportunity to present themselves during the Selection Day before an audience of professionals: through a 3-minute elevated pitch and dedicated interactive tables – with partners, members of the Advisory Board and the PLAI team, as well as the Mondadori Group – they had a chance to present themselves and therefore continue their selection process to access the acceleration programme promoted by PLAI.

It was an intense and dynamic day of speeches, presentations, and networking, packed with ideas and inspiration. This unique opportunity provided all participants with a special insight into the Italian and international ecosystem of generative artificial intelligence, focusing in particular on four application areas: education, book and publishing, new media & advertising and retail.

In the coming weeks, the names of the 10 startups selected for the first acceleration cycle will be announced based on the criteria of team quality, integration potential, scalability, technological innovation, roadmap and go-to-market. For these startups, the acceleration cycle will begin in October and last four months. During this phase, each startup will benefit from more than 50 hours of dedicated workshops led by Italian and international experts, 20 hours of tailored mentorship and participation in dedicated events.

A Demo Day is planned for early 2025, when startups will be introduced to the market, enabling them to present themselves to investors and companies and therefore kick-start a further important stage of development.

During the Selection Day, PLAI welcomed two new strategic partners: Fastweb, one of Italy’s leading telecommunications operators, and StartupItalia, the independent digital hub of Italian technological innovation.

“We are proud to have important Italian and international partners with us, who will support us in building a functional ecosystem to support startups and with whom we will be able to discuss various innovation and AI topics. The accelerator activities are proceeding at a fast pace, with great enthusiasm and the best professionalism, partly thanks to their contribution,” comments Stefano Argiolas, CEO of PLAI.

Together with those who had already joined the project, the two new partners will provide the PLAI-Ground – the ecosystem around PLAI – with unique skills and assets. Selected startups will be able to join structured training and mentorship courses, participate in networking events, access cutting-edge technologies and thereby accelerate their growth and reach their full potential.

Fastweb and StartupItalia are also joining the PLAI Advisory Board, composed of a group of established professionals, academics and managers with wide-ranging expertise in AI and business development.

Fastweb’s partnership with PLAI is part of a broader agreement reached with the Mondadori Group. Fastweb, which in July launched NeXXt AI Factory, the first supercomputer in Italy dedicated to generative AI – and presented the first release of MIIA, the new LLM (large language model) trained natively in Italian on high-quality Italian data both public and from third-party companies –, will be able to count on an important set of editorial content from Mondadori Media’s vertical media brands (such as GialloZafferano, Focus, MypersonalTrainer…).

The agreement is based on the Mondadori Group’s conviction that a national language model based on the Italian language, such as Fastweb’s, is a useful asset for the Italian economy to take advantage of the many opportunities related to the AI revolution. Moreover, the AI model developed by Fastweb is based on the utmost attention to data protection and copyright, which are essential aspects for reconciling development, rights, innovation and fair distribution of value.

Fastweb will therefore be an important partner not only for PLAI, but also for the development of AI within the entire Mondadori Group.

The collaboration with StartupItalia, initiated from the very first stage through support for PLAI in the call 4 startups, will continue in the future with a focus on a serial, multi-channel and multimedia value communication path, which will see the creation of editorial and social content on specific strategic topics and PLAI’s participation as a partner in the Florence (2 October) and Milan (17 December) editions of the StartupItalia Open Summit (SIOS) – since 2015, the leading, most recognised and most widespread Italian event dedicated to innovation.

PLAI is the Mondadori Group’s startup accelerator that aims to transform ideas based on the exploitation of artificial intelligence into successful entrepreneurial ventures. PLAI offers them a distinctive field of application and an industrial market both within the Group and with the initiative’s partners. PLAI operates in the pre-seed and seed phases, selecting 10 Italian and international startups for each annual acceleration cycle. In addition to capital, the accelerator provides startups with concrete AI application areas, structured training and mentorship courses and the opportunity to participate in networking events, partly thanks to the unique set of skills and assets provided by major Italian and international partners