Telespazio and Leonardo to launch #T-TeC 2021, the Open Innovation contest which will be stopping at Expo 2020 Dubai

Rome, 1 July 2021 – Today sees the launch of the third edition of #T-TeC, the Telespazio Technology Contest, an Open Innovation initiative that for the first time will be open to students and researchers from universities and departments worldwide and this year will experience a key moment at Expo 2020 Dubai.

With #T-TeC, Telespazio and Leonardo aim to promote technological innovation within the space sector among the young generations, enhancing the value of their ideas and insights and imagining with them the technologies that will make a mark on our future. The 2021 edition coincides with the sixtieth anniversary of the foundation of Telespazio, a company that has made innovation its hallmark and that has always striven to discover the pioneers of the future, an attitude that is as true today as on its establishment in 1961.

This initiative is one of the activities promoted by Leonardo for Open Innovation: a sharing of innovation that has taken on a key role in promoting new ideas and opportunities, with a long-term vision set out in the Be Tomorrow – Leonardo 2030 strategic plan.

For the 2021 edition of #T-TeC, teams of students and researchers will challenge each other in four technological macro-themes of great importance to the present and future of the space sector: “Space Exploration”, “In-Orbit Servicing”, “GeoInformation Applications and Platforms”, and “Space Situation Awareness & Space Traffic Management”.

A panel of judges made up of representatives from Telespazio and Leonardo, industry experts, and representatives from a number of space agencies will select three winning teams who will be awarded €10,000 (1st prize), €6,000 (2nd prize) and €4,000 (3rd prize). The judging panel will also select four special mentions, one for each macro-theme in the competition, and will assess the possibility of funding the most promising ideas with research contracts or working collaborations.

To mark the week that Expo 2020 Dubai will be dedicating to Space, participants in the contest will have the chance to connect with the Italy Pavilion to ask questions and seek advice from Leonardo and Telespazio’s team of experts, who will be meeting Emirati start-ups and university academics for the occasion. From there, #T-TeC will continue until 14 November, the closing day of the contest, when the stage of the Italy Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai will again be the setting for the award ceremony in December.

Leonardo is among the sponsors of the Italy Pavilion and will take part in Expo 2020 Dubai by bringing some outstanding examples of space technology to the event, including an atomic clock and the drill of the ESA ExoMars 2022 mission to Mars. The company will also set out its vision for the future of aeronautics as represented by the AW609 technology, the tiltrotor that will revolutionise vertical mobility.