South Tyrol is often associated with holidays, but the region also has a lot to offer economically, such as the lowest unemployment rate within the EU and the highest gross domestic product in Italy. How good is the location for Startups? The entrepreneur Gabriele Paglialonga compares South Tyrol with innovation centers in the USA.

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From the USA to South Tyrol

Gabriele Paglialonga has lived in the USA for a long time and also spent time there in Boston Company Medygo before he decided to return to his homeland in South Tyrol. Paglialonga is also coordinator at the Italian Business Network Italiacamp and also support other start-upFounders. South Tyrol has both advantages and disadvantages for him – especially for him Boy company founder.

He sees an advantage in the high Quality of life, which is also guaranteed in the Italian constitution by the autonomy of the South Tyrol-Trentino region, among others in Education and Economy is conditional.

The advantages of South Tyrol

South Tyrol has an unemployment rate of 5,3 percent and a nominal gross domestic product of 18.664 billion euros. The share of corporate investments in GDP in 2011 was 26,7 percent. Corporate taxation (IRES) is 27,5 percent, the IRAP tax rate is the lowest in Italy at 2,98 percent, and this falls for newly founded companies tax completely gone in the first five years. The employment rate is 71 percent, 28 percent of them are self-employed.

It starts with the University, where future company founders are confronted with real problems: As part of a university project, Elisabetta Seggioci, 19, and Andriy Tyyko, 20, computer science students in their first semester, were looking for innovations that Problems to solve by local farmers in production. They had met with these and found that the hail was the greatest Risks for the crop failure. Although there were already hail nets, these had to be opened manually until now when it was hail - which led to delays and damage.

Innovative university spin-offs

The students therefore developed a hail alarmSystem, whose sensors open the hail nets automatically and promptly. They have applied for a patent on it and merchandise now licenses to companies that manufacture hail nets.

Despite so much creativity, South Tyrol is not a start-up paradise for Paglialonga. For him, this has to do with the fact that the basic requirement for a successful start-up is creative, entrepreneurial thinking. For this is not only a corresponding Vocational Training necessary, but also the environment must be correspondingly inspiring and open to new ones ideas be. Paglialonga started his own company in Boston for exactly this reason. For start-up founders who come to South Tyrol especially, it is clear harder to cope with the more traditionally colored local mentality than in other places.