At the end of May 2025, the project promoted by the Start 4.0 Competence Center officially came to a successful close. The initiative saw the active collaboration of Italy & Partners alongside other key players in the digital sector, including InvisibleFarm, Aitek, and the Start 4.0 Competence Center itself.
The project was launched with the goal of developing a tool to assist public entities (as well as private companies) in their digital transformation assessment processes. The starting point was the analysis and enhancement of the existing City Badge tool, which led to several tangible results, including new opportunities for companies interested in becoming partners in urban innovation. Below, we detail the outcomes of the initiative.
City Badge: What Is It and What Has Changed?
The heart of the Start 4.0 project was the evolution of the City Badge tool, co-owned by Italy & Partners and InvisibleFarm. But what exactly is City Badge? It’s a tool designed to help local governments assess their level of digital maturity. Thanks to the project, new resources were invested in its development, leading to the integration of new technologies.
Today, City Badge has evolved into an intelligent, bidirectional system with two main functions:
- On one side, it supports municipalities and local authorities in evaluating and planning digital innovation strategies;
- On the other, it helps businesses identify areas where they can offer tailored solutions, based on the compatibility between their offerings and the needs expressed by public entities.
Among the most significant innovations is the integration of artificial intelligence components capable of automatically analyzing both assessment questionnaire responses and a wide range of public (such as DUP, PEG, PIAO, budgets, planning documents) and private documents (product sheets, catalogs, corporate proposals). The system can now detect correlations between an entity’s needs and available market solutions, making it easier to match public demand with private supply.
City Badge: Practical Applications
Thanks to the investments made possible by the Start 4.0 project, City Badge has been enriched with new features, all of which were carefully tested in various phases.
The new version of City Badge was piloted within Aitek, a company active in the fields of security technologies and artificial intelligence. This trial phase allowed for a hands-on evaluation of the tool’s value and provided useful insights for further improvement.
To better understand the project’s impact and gather different perspectives, we interviewed key representatives from the involved partners: Raffaele Gareri (Executive Director of Italy & Partners), Fabrizio Ferrari (President of Aitek), Giuseppe Stefini (CEO of InvisibleFarm), and Georgia Cesarone (Innovation Manager at Start 4.0).
What new skills or value has this project created for Italy & Partners?
Raffaele Gareri – Executive Director of Italy & Partners:
“The project allowed us to upgrade the City Badge tool, which was already part of our portfolio, making it available to other companies as well. This opens up opportunities for businesses interested in positioning themselves more effectively in the field of urban innovation—an increasingly critical area for the future of cities and regions. It’s a concrete step forward in Italy & Partners’ mission to drive digital transformation across Italy.”
What benefits did Aitek gain from participating in this project?
Fabrizio Ferrari – President of Aitek:
“We gained a deeper understanding of the logic behind smart city project proposals. This also gave us the opportunity to use a tool that can quickly and accurately showcase Aitek’s existing competencies. Collaborating with our partners and experimenting with City Badge provided us with very practical insights to make our solutions even more aligned with our clients’ needs.”
What contributions can InvisibleFarm bring to the public sector innovation landscape?
Giuseppe Stefini – CEO of InvisibleFarm:
“InvisibleFarm has a long history of working with the public sector, but our DNA remains that of a software house focused on adopting cutting-edge technologies. In recent years, we’ve heavily invested in AI-dedicated teams, creating multidisciplinary groups capable of tackling real challenges faced by local governments. This project demonstrated that it is possible to combine strategic vision and technological expertise to offer practical, scalable solutions—thanks to tools like City Badge.”
What were your impressions of the funding and collaboration on this project?
Georgia Cesarone – Innovation Manager at Start 4.0:
“We saw a very engaged development process, with diverse teams bringing in technical, commercial, and deep domain knowledge of public administration. It was satisfying to see how, with the support and coordination of Start 4.0, we were able to deliver a tool as operationally useful as City Badge. Personally, I consider this a highly significant achievement for all companies looking to explore new business areas such as the public sector—often overlooked but actually full of potential.”
Future Outlook for City Badge
The experience gained through the Start 4.0 project demonstrates the effectiveness of collaboration between tech companies and public institutions in creating practical, scalable tools that can generate real-world impact. The evolution of the City Badge tool stands as a virtuous example of how AI and digitalization can be harnessed to serve cities—simplifying the meeting point between public demand and private supply.
Given the tangible results already achieved, the City Badge project now opens up new development opportunities—for both companies and local administrations eager to face the challenges and seize the opportunities of digital transformation with awareness and commitment.