FinTech, Cybersecurity, IoT and industry 4.0, FoodTech and artificial intelligence. These are the topics that most animated conversations on Twitter in Italy during 2016. This is what emerges from the research "Italy of Startups", carried out by IBM Italia and Talent Garden and now in its third edition.
Starting from the tweets sent in 2016 by the 10 reference e-magazines for the tech community in Italy (@Chefuturo, @Startup_Italia, @EconomyUp, @Startupbusiness, @Wireditalia, @CorInnovazione, @Ideastartup, @Startupperblog, @Nova24Tec and @techecon ) the most representative hashtags were identified which were used as keywords to filter and intercept the conversations exchanged in our country during 2016. The research collected one million tweets produced in the last year by over 260 thousand unique users around hundreds of hashtags. These are the results.
THE MOST USED HASHTAGS
When tweeting about innovation the following words are used:
THE TOPICS THAT HAVE MOST ANIMATED THE CONVERSATIONS ON TWITTER
From the punctual analysis of the most treated contents some threads of discussion emerge
- FinTech: the banking system is reacting slowly to the technological tsunami that has hit it. Digital transformation and advanced analytics have become priorities for banks to survive and compete; moreover, the expectations of end users are increasingly biased towards digital-enabled interaction methods, typical of non-banking realities.
- Cybersecurity: security on the web is a must, therefore government initiatives such as the "National plan for the protection of cyberspace" or the National Cybersecurity Framework are of great interest, which are not yet recognized as sufficient to guarantee the protection of sensitive information. The need also emerges to promote greater cooperation between the public and private sectors.
- IoT and Industry 4.0: a strong awareness emerges that Italy is lagging behind and running far below its digital potential. As far as IoT and Industry 4.0 applications are concerned, not only smart factories on the horizon but also uses to improve cities, health, retail and mobility. From a technological point of view, the debate is important and there is strong interest in shared development platforms and communication protocols.
- Food Tech: there was an appreciation of technologies that support and solve problems related to food waste. In short, cost savings, savings for the environment, health benefits and increased productivity`. On a technical level these are land-free production techniques, hydroponics, aeroponics, aquaponics and 3D printers.
- Artificial Intelligence: deep learning and robotics seen as an important resource and aid in many sectors. From medical diagnostics to so-called "shopping assistants", but in general wherever it is necessary to analyze and interpret huge volumes of unstructured data and interact in natural language.
- Open Innovation and Societing: in response to changing markets and economic models. Companies must reconsider business strategies from a new point of view that takes into account the profound changes in society and, therefore, in the consumer. The neologism societing appears, the socialization of production processes.
MEN AND WOMEN: THE PERCENTAGES AND THE FAVORITE HASHTAGS
31% of Twitter conversations on innovation are made by women who show a greater propensity towards topics such as robotics and crowdfunding; Men instead focus more on issues related to financial aspects and network security.
THE MAP OF INNOVATORS
In 2016, the city of innovation award was won by Milan, which with 12% of the tweets is positioned on the top step of the podium. Rome follows with 9% of the total discussions and Turin, which like last year with its 2,8% was slightly detached from the two metropolises. First city in southern Naples which ranks fourth with 2,5%, followed by Trieste, Verona, Bologna and Cremona. The placings of Trieste and Verona in 5th and 6th place are interesting even though they are not equally represented in terms of number of startups in the area*. Also in 2016 a preponderance of the cities of the Centre-North was recorded in conversations on Twitter, the novelty is that for the South Palermo and Cagliari enter the rankings.
*Source: http://startup.registroimprese.it/report/3_ trimester_2016.pdf
THE NETWORK OF INFLUENCERS
Focusing on the analysis of relationships between users, conversations (retweets and mentions) can be summarized by representing each twitter user with a point (node) whose diameter is proportional to the number of retweets and mentions received. Looking at the network, one can confirm the blocks of conversation around sector magazines, political-institutional users and IT players compared to last year.
THE MOST FOLLOWED EVENTS
The peak of conversations on the topic of startups was recorded on April 29, 2016 during Internet Day, the celebration linked to 30 years of the internet in Italy, with a total of 15.616 tweets around the #Internetday hashtag. The other peaks were recorded at "Seeds&Chips 2016", "Food Innovation", "Future Decoded", "National Assembly of Digital Champions", "Milan Social Media Week", "Wired Next Fest" as well as the IBM Business Connect dedicated to the topic of IoT and industry 4.0.
