The Entrepreneurs – Is Italy’s Tech Ecosystem on the Rise?

Takeaways from The Bologna Gathering 2025
Date: October 8, 2025
Host: Tom Edwards, Monocle Radio
Guests/Reporters: Ed Stocker, Niklas Pavoncelli, Vladimir Prelovit, Mehran Gul, Laura Kramer, Chris Chermak

Episode Overview

This episode explores whether Italy’s tech scene is poised for a breakthrough, with first-hand insights from the exclusive Bologna Gathering 2025. The show also examines the evolving geography of global tech innovation—contrasting Silicon Valley, China, and Europe—and addresses the rising issue of “AI slop” in search results. The tone is thoughtful, optimistic, and peppered with cautionary tales and hard lessons from industry insiders.

Key Segments & Insights

1. Italy’s Tech Ecosystem: On the Cusp?

(00:12–08:51)

The Bologna Gathering in Focus

• Setting: Held at Mario Cucinella-designed Bologna Business School, this English-language, invite-only event convened Italian startups, investors, and corporations.
• Purpose: Shift the narrative around Italy as a tech destination and facilitate investment.

Structural Challenges & Progress

• Niklas Pavoncelli (Head Organizer) frames the situation:

  “The Italian tech scene has changed a lot… At this point in time, 2025, the ecosystem is growing. We passed some milestones that make us say, yes, there is a tech ecosystem in Italy. But…the ecosystem size is still smaller than the Spanish one…and it is surpassed by even the Nordic countries which have populations of size of a single region of Italy.” (02:20/02:37)

• Narrative Shift: Organizers and founders push back against the idea of defeatism.
  • Alessandro Chilario (Cubbit, co-founder):

    “At the same time, it’s true. Europe is losing.” (03:23)
    “Still, we have not lost yet and this is something that nobody is saying.” (03:43)

Italian Success Stories & Global Mindsets

• Gianni Kwarzo (Founder, Xene Cybersecurity):

  “Right now is the right moment to invest in Italy and to double down in Italy. Also to go beyond the stereotypes of this, you know, bella vita country in which people come only on vacation. We can actually build technology here.” (04:16)

  • Key achievement: Xene manages 1.5 billion devices and raised €70M in Series C funding; first license sold in South Korea due to a limited internal market.

  “Our success actually is based on the fact that we are Italian. When you are building…in Italy, you are forced to sell this technology abroad. And this creates this international mindset that you need to operate on a global level…So we were global since day one.” (05:06)

Other Emerging Italian Startups

• Whaler (Milan-based van-pooling):
  • Mario Ferretti:

    “There is space to grow ideas, there is space to innovate, there is space to disrupt.” (05:57)

• Runoon (Digital product passports for fashion, moving from Amsterdam to Milan):
  • Iris Skrami:

    “There’s so many Italians as well, that somehow they never forget that they’re Italian. …It’s a great moment for founders in Italy.” (06:56)

The Road Ahead: Mindset Matters

• Pavoncelli (on what’s needed):

  “If you want to change the world, you have to start from yourself…that’s why we bring in success cases, people that is trying, that is doing something great, to inspire other people to do great things.” (08:08)

2. The Global Tech Innovation Landscape: Shifting Gravity

(08:51–19:07)

Silicon Valley’s Secret Sauce

• Mehran Gul (Author, “The New Geography of Innovation”) explains why SV thrived:

  “This is the work of Dr. Annelie Saxenian at Berkeley, that the role of non compete clauses played a huge role in creating a network in the Valley…ideas were circulating freely in the environment, whereas out in the east things were locked up in individual companies.” (09:55)

Rethinking Innovation Rankings

• Critique of the Global Innovation Index:

  “Switzerland is at the top…but it’s a country that doesn’t play that big a role in tech innovation. China doesn’t even appear anywhere in the top 10. Do we have sort of wrong, frankly, what makes an innovative country and society?” (11:24–12:10)

China’s Rise—Undervalued and Misunderstood

• Perception gap:

  “China gets systematically underestimated…the idea that they’re only good at copying what’s available elsewhere is dated by about five to 10 years…Is Chinese talent in the lead globally? When it comes to AI, the answer is unequivocally yes.” (14:14)

• Talent migration:

  “Go to any AI company in the US…you will find a plurality of Chinese talent working there…and they went to three institutions…in China.” (14:14)

US Strengths & New Vulnerabilities

• The American edge:

  “The US has the enormous luxury of picking from 7 billion people…that is really what current policies are undermining.” (16:25)

  • Caution over restrictive immigration policies and declining international student numbers.

  “Anyone who is interested in innovation in the US ought to be concerned about the turn that things have taken this year.” (16:25)

Europe’s Confidence & Structural Barriers

• On premature company sales:

  “DeepMind was sold to Google for only about half a billion dollars 10 years ago…there is a problem in Europe of selling companies too early, of companies being under-capitalized…” (18:11)

3. Combating “AI Slop” in Search and Content

(19:07–28:02)

What is AI Slop?

• Vladimir Prelovit (Founder, Kagi search engine):

  “AI slop is the low quality AI generated content. It could be text, it could be images, it could be videos. That's starting to plague the web.” (19:57)

Kagi’s Solution: Slop Stop

• Two-pronged approach:

  1. Community flagging: Users can flag AI slop, helping Kagi identify it.
  2. Automated detection: Proprietary systems crawl and flag low-quality AI-generated content.

  “We are building our own systems that will crawl the web and proactively find, identify and flag AI slop.” (19:57)

• Slop Stop aims to reduce such results by 75% in six months.

  “I think we will get very good at it and 75% will be the lower end goal for us.” (27:44)

Why It Matters

• The threat:

  “The web as we know it will be very different few years from now. Most of it will be AI generated…That presents a challenge for us as a society because information is valuable and you should be able [to trust] the source of your information.” (25:07)

• The arms race:

  “...We have been dealing with this for years already in terms of ads and ad tech...proliferation of AI generated content...is usually connected to some kind of low quality monetization.” (26:28)

• Prelovit’s core mission:

  “We are sending traffic to humans and hopefully not sending traffic to AI generated websites.” (27:34)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We have not lost yet and this is something that nobody is saying.” — Alessandro Chilario, (03:43)
• “Our success actually is based on the fact that we are Italian. …We were global since day one.” — Gianni Kwarzo, (05:06)
• “China gets systematically underestimated…the idea that they’re only good at developing applications…is dated by about five to 10 years.” — Mehran Gul, (14:14)
• “Anyone who is interested in innovation in the US ought to be concerned about the turn that things have taken this year.” — Mehran Gul, (16:25)
• “AI slop is the low quality AI generated content…Kagi is building technology to basically recognize and then allow users to filter out AI slop in their search results…” — Vladimir Prelovit, (19:57)

Important Timestamps

• 00:12 – Introduction to episode theme and Italian tech focus (Tom Edwards)
• 02:20 – Niklas Pavoncelli on the growth and persistent structural drawbacks in Italy’s tech scene
• 03:43 – Alessandro Chilario’s call to resist defeatism in European tech
• 05:06 – Gianni Kwarzo on why Xene’s Italian roots fostered a global orientation
• 08:08 – On changing mindsets in the Italian tech ecosystem
• 09:55 – Mehran Gul on the historical rise of Silicon Valley and role of non-competes
• 14:14 – China's AI talent leads globally, not just in applications or copying
• 16:25 – US competitiveness and the existential risk of anti-immigration sentiment
• 19:57 – Vladimir Prelovit defines AI slop and introduces Kagi’s “Slop Stop”
• 25:07 – The societal risk of allowing low-quality AI content to proliferate
• 27:44 – Targeting 75% reduction in AI slop in Kagi’s results

Episode Takeaways

• Italy’s tech sector is building momentum—buoyed by internationalized startups, returning founders, and a hunger to overturn the “la dolce vita” stereotype.
• Structural inertia and a defeatist narrative remain obstacles for Italian and broader European tech.
• China’s prowess in tech, especially in AI, is both underestimated and increasingly indisputable.
• The traditional strength of US tech—openness to global talent—is facing self-sabotage via restrictive policies.
• As generative AI floods the web with “slop,” user-driven, human-centric tools like Kagi are emerging to keep information reliable and the web, well, human.