Friday April 26 we launched “Tech and the City” in San Francisco, where we were warmly welcomed at the Italian Consulate and at Mind the Bridge, the foundation created by Marco Marinucci to help develop the Italian startup ecosystem.

The Italian Consul Mauro Battocchi explained how the Italians are big players in the tech community in Silicon Valley and in San Francisco, ranging from the veterans such as Federico Faggin – the inventor of the first microprocessor – to new comers, startuppers settling here like the founders of Timbuktu. The Consul is very active in supporting this trend and enhancing the image of made in Italy tech.

So it was an incredible honor to have Mr Faggin attending the conference at Mind the Bridge, Friday afternoon, where “Tech and the City” was launched. We had a full house with around 100 people, including the whole team of Timbuktu, Elena Favilli, Francesca Cavallo and Erica Capanni.

First, there was the graduation ceremony of students who attended the Startup School, with their demos, then Massimo Arrigoni moderated the debate about “Tech and the City”.

Massimo said that he liked so much our book that the felt the urge to move to New York! He rightly pointed out that one very special ingredient of the NY tech ecosystem is the special collaboration between the private and public sectors, with Mayor Bloomberg playing an important role without imposing the typical bureaucracy and politics, as we explained in the book. The open question is whether this model can be replicated and where: can Italian – or any other – politicians learn anything from it? We hope so.