From this interview, you’ll be enlightened by one thing: the cross-border human power of innovating and connecting minds. Marika Mazzi Boém, co-founder & Innovation Strategy Director at X23 Srl The Innovation Bakery combines in-depth business strategy and a farsighted international expertise.
She is the mind behind the
EUDigiTOUR project and official coordinator. Let’s meet her!
Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you came to co-found X23 Srl The Innovation Bakery?
I have been active in this field for 25 years, starting very young at 19 with an American multinational advertising company. I worked mainly with global clients, focusing on marketing, digital strategy, and business strategy. After years of experience, I wanted to do something of my own.
My path crossed with Giuseppe Laquidara, and our two realities merged - my industry-oriented one and Giuseppe's research-oriented one. Two souls, 20 years ago.
X23 The Innovation Bakery was born.
X23's focus is on
innovation: we want to make innovative ideas flourish. We are inspired and driven by “collaborative innovation” thus fostering knowledge transfer, capacity building and resilience.
European projects are definitely our showpiece. In European planning, action research activity is linked to scouting business opportunities. We write about topics related to our mission and vision: sustainable development goals appear to be the common thread. So, at the same time, our main emphasis is on creating and implementing new ideas that address
social innovation.
You designed the EU DigiTOUR project first-hand, can you tell us more about this and your role as official coordinator?
There are no easier paths to follow when you write a project and build a consortium: you design it not only based on what you are writing, but
skills and
European cooperation are at the heart of everything you do. It is our flagship project. As coordinator role, we have to be good at negotiation skills to overcome cultural clash mindsets within the great European melting pot.
Digital technologies are pivotal for the tourism industry, especially post-COVID19. EU DigiTOUR project is really all about
technological assets, aiming at supporting the digital transition of European tourism SMEs. The scheme was designed to help shape the next generation EU tourism SMEs in the digital realm, leading to new, innovative, and smart tourism solutions and business models by the use of AI, IoT, VR and AR, and big data.
Now we are entering the
High-Growth Programme stage: we are evaluating deep tech companies that will access our acceleration journey, getting mentoring and coaching and the chance to secure up to EUR 10K.
So stay tuned!
What is the uniqueness behind this acceleration programme?
For this project we split our focus on two enablers: innovative tourism companies which can be game-changing in the industry and the High-Growth Programme which helps innovators overcome the lack of funding, provide technical coaching, and resources. The other innovative side is going to be delivered in the
hackathons, a productive collaboration among students and people in the field, leading to more realistic innovation. We bring together digital champions who already have solutions and put SMEs at the center of the innovation, with students, researchers, policymakers, and anyone who wants to contribute. New perspectives can arise from this confrontation. We create teams experimenting cross-thematic solutions, creating a
hotbed of new, thriving innovations.
EU DigiTOUR as all your European projects is only a starting point to create something bigger: can you give us more insights about how projects are evolving?
This first one and half year of hard work and dedication are a testament to what can be accomplished when we come together to make a difference. We are witnessing the EU DigiTOUR network keep on growing into a big community where tourism professionals, innovative businesses and digital enthusiasts gather and use their voice to make tourism flourish.
But as you said, our work doesn’t end here. Our plan is to write and implement something that makes sense with lasting results, with the goal of 80% of the projects continuing after the pilot phase.
We are already sowing the seeds for this now.
We want to set a course for a paradigm shift that will last and develop in the long-term. It can be achieved only with forward-thinking partners and stakeholders!
Thank you Marika and good luck on your ambitious endeavors!
THE EU DigiTOUR Project 2021-2024
info@eudigitour.eu
Co-funded by the COSME Programme
of the European Union
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