23/03/2023
Lagazuoi Winning Ideas Mountain Awards:
an explosion of entrepreneurial creativity for the new edition
of the Mountain Innovation Award
Agriculture Influencers
Cows waiting to be adopted
Winter jackets made from tyres
Extreme climate simulation chambers
These are some of the winning projects of the 2023 edition of the award dedicated to avant-garde ideas in the mountain sector. The exhibition dedicated to the winners will open, as a preview, on Saturday 1st April 2023 and remain open to visitors at the Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti in Cortina until June 2024.
Cortina d’Ampezzo, 24th March 2023_ Lagazuoi Winning Ideas Mountain Awards, the original curatorial project of the Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti exhibition centre, officially announces the winners of the fourth edition. Each award confirms the intuition that led to its creation: the highlands bring together all the conditions that favour creativity. It is a difficult territory - even extreme, from a climatic and environmental point of view - and mountain communities are pushed to find a balance and develop strategies that are very different from those for the lowlands or the cities.
The fourth edition of Lagazuoi Winning Ideas Mountain Awards has brought in experts and professionals to select those companies, start-ups and communities that have best exploited the potential of the mountains to achieve new goals.
They have tested materials with unique characteristics, found new forms of sociality, put the paradigms of digitalisation to the test, and highlighted unexplored possibilities.
This year, the competition is enhanced by an absolute novelty: Lagazuoi WIMA+, a showcase dedicated to communication. It consists of two special prizes to reward the best journalistic works on the subject of the mountains. The first was created in collaboration with GIS, the Italian Ski Journalists Association, and the second with GIST, the Italian Travel Journalists Association. This is a way to overcome the conventional idea of the mountains, which is too often based on picture postcard clichés, and to highlight the history of a vital, modern and creative territory anchored in the present. Prizes have been awarded to journalists who have tackled these aspects and adequately presented them, conveying a perception of the mountains as a place of renewal and virtuous interaction between man and the environment.
The exhibition of the winning projects will be inaugurated on Saturday 1st April 2023 at Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti and will remain open until Easter Monday, 10th April. Then it will reopen in June, with the start of the summer season and will be on display until March 2024.
The winning projects
Category: Mountain clothing and equipment
The entries were selected by Sciare Mag, edited by the journalist Marco Di Marco
Jury: Antonello Marega, chairman at the EPSI (European Platform for Sport Innovation), Max Cassani, La Stampa, Stefano Illing, Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti
Discarded products become valuable raw materials for the new jacket by Vaude. The basic material, a recycled polyamide, is made from old tyres using a process that reduces CO2 emissions by up to 60%. And the highly insulating and warm inner lining is made from PET bottles. Thanks to these and other features, and its casual and modern design, the new jacket by Vaude is ideal for a weekend in the mountains, as it withstands wind, rain and cold.
“Go with your nature”. Ski technology adopts this mantra with a new model made by El Camös, an Italian start-up that began its activity in the cycling world and now addresses the world of winter sports par excellence. The secret consists of radially extending lamellar wood fibres, forming the ski core. The sidecut lines of the edges follow the same geometry, supporting power transmission. That’s why these skis are particularly suitable for off-piste skiing.
Category: Services and Apps for the mountains
The entries were selected by The Pill,edited by the journalist Denis Piccolo
Jury: Andrea Macchiavelli, a professor of Tourism Economics at the Universities of Bergamo and Milano Bicocca, Giovanni Moro,editor-in-chief of the DOVE multimedia system, Stefano Illing, Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti
Cliché-free, the first agro-influencers are created: a new way of reporting on rural life is emerging on the farms of Trentino and the surrounding area. An independent network of rebels and revolutionaries in South Tyrolean agriculture produces content - including podcasts and short films - that is bilingual and accessible to a wide audience. The Farmfluencers ironically adopt the rules and language used for social media communication to create a new, vivid narrative that is a source of inspiration for the new generation.
The most inhospitable place in the world? It is located in Bolzano. TerraXcube is a research facility that simulates the most extreme climates on earth, from the 60°C of the North African desert to the -40°C of the Himalayan peaks, even reproducing different parameters simultaneously and combining them with the effects of high altitude. TerraXcube is unique in the world and enables medical and environmental research and industrial testing that were previously impossible. The climatic and hypobaric chambers can house humans, plants and other organisms, machines and products.
It is dubbed the "Rural-Urban Metabolism Agency". Ruma is the first global monitoring system that helps all organisations seeking to improve their environmental impact. This platform is a challenge to greenwashing and the lack of transparency in the sector. It is based on scientific data and parameters to assess carbon emissions, biodiversity and sustainability, and also addresses the participatory design, matchmaking between companies and local authorities, and energy planning.
Category: Mountain gastronomy industry
The entries were selected by ‘Italia a Tavola’, edited by the journalist Alberto Lupini
Jury: Emanuele Boselli, an Associate Professor of Food Science and Technology at the Faculty of Science and Technology of the Free University of Bolzano, Luigi Cremona, journalist and food and wine critic, Stefano Illing, Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti.
Cheese producers become masters. In the main square of Roccaverano, the highest village in the province of Asti, the first showroom dedicated to the famous Robiola PDO cheese has been set up in a classroom of the old primary school. The Roccaverano School is a documentation centre where people can hear the stories of the producers, explore the farms and tasting routes, and discover the different stages of ripeness of this unique speciality, which was awarded the 2021 Italian Cheese Prize in the "fresh cheese" category.
Their names are Irene, Perla, Stella and Emy. They are between 3 and 9 years old and will soon reach the high mountain pastures where they will eat the tender summer grass. They are some of the protagonists of "Adopt a Cow from Costalta", a project that allows you to choose your favourite cow and "follow" it, thus supporting the activity of the farmers of the Cooperativa Peralba in Valdisdende. In return, besides a lifelong friendship with the chosen cow, you receive fresh and matured high-quality mountain pasture products.
Together we are stronger. The first Italian network of specialised agricultural businesses was founded in Valtrompia. It is made up of businesses that have decided to stop seeing each other as competitors and rivals and join forces to collectively promote their typical products and accommodations. This makes it easier for them to present themselves to the public and communicate the quality of their work. It is a very promising form of cooperation, born out of the desire to run the "Centre for the Enhancement and Development of the Rural Culture of the Region" as a group.
The special communication awards
Jury - Roberta Serdoz, editor-in-chief of TGR Lazio, Jacopo Orsini, editor of Il Messaggero, and Stefano Illing, Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti.
Winner: the TV report by Francesca Sancin, aired on 25th September 2022 on the Tg3 news programme of Italian public television channel three. It is a comprehensive and cliché-free insight into how the people who work in the mountains are constantly experimenting with solutions to adapt to the environment. In this report, the mountains are presented as a place of innovation and confidence in the future.
Jury - Gisella Motta, journalist and photographer specialising in mountain reportage, Maurizio Maria Fossati, journalist of Quotidiano Nazionale, and Stefano Illing, Lagazuoi EXPO Dolomiti.
Winner: the article by Chiara Todesco published in La Stampa on 11th December 2022 entitled "Dagli impianti alle iniziative delle località alpine: sei casi virtuosi di montagna green" (From lifts to initiatives of alpine resorts: six examples of environmentally friendly mountains). The text gives an overview of exemplary projects and positive, eco-sustainable and technological paths taken by different mountain regions, highlighting the innovative potential of businesses operating in the mountains.
Partners
Four Italian corporations support the WIMA project, spearheading it through their respective communication platforms.
These are ANGI, the Italian Association of Young Innovators, chaired by Gabriele Ferrieri, the first non-profit organization in Italy entirely dedicated to the world of innovation; ASSI Manager, the Italian Sport Business Manager Association, which brings together established professionals involved in sports management who, under the direction of their president, Federico Fantini, are focused on the economic and marketing front of sports management; UNCEM, Italian Union of Mountain Towns and Communities, chaired by Marco Bussone, which brings together the localities and companies operating in the mountains and has dedicated the last decade to the issues of energy efficiency and sustainable development; Assosport, the Association of Italian Sporting Goods Industry, chaired by Anna Ferrino, represents, supports and promotes, both in Italy and worldwide, companies manufacturing and/or distributing clothing, footwear and equipment for the sports sector in Italy; Confindustria Belluno Dolomiti, an important Italian Industry Association that supports the development and enhancement of the local economy linked to the unparalleled Dolomites, a World Heritage site, with a particular focus on innovation and internalization.
Development and coordination of Lagazuoi Expo Dolomiti special projects and DOC-COM Press Office
