Anilkumar Dave, his friends call him Anil, started his career in late ‘90s as Project Manager of ICT projects between Italy and India, then moved to European Commission funded R&D and Technology Transfer (TT) projects thus representing public and private bodies focusing interaction between Research and Industry before taking duty in 2005 as “SMEs Innovation and TT policies” officer at the Institute for Industrial Promotion (aka Italian Ministry of Economic Development).

He worked in/with sectors spamming from textile/clothing to footwear, from logistics to households, from FMCGs to agro-food. The two main themes that characterized his professional life, Innovation and Internationalization led him to design and lead for 10 years, starting on 2007, the “Research, Technology Transfer and International projects” Unit for the largest innovation agency in Italy helping companies (mostly SMEs) being more innovative and accessing European and public funds (25+ M€). During his tenure at the ITALIAN SPACE AGENCY he launched and directed the “Innovation and Transfer of Technologies” Unit in charge of New Space Economy aspects like start-ups and incubators, risk finance, technology transfer, patents, IPR valorization etc. and promoted SATTO, the Space Agency Tech. Transf. Offices platform; later was appointed Open Innovation advisor to the president and coordinator of the ASI OECD Space Forum team.

Proud speaker at the first edition of UN “Multi-stakeholder Forum on STI for the SDGs” as well as TEDx speaker, Anil is a former member of EXPO WATER 2015 scientific committee and of INSME board (International Network for SME). He acted in the past as Strategy Advisor for Research organizations in domains of pediatrics hemato-oncology and micro-nano fabrication. Currently Anil is senior partner at the innovation hub INIFINITE AREA and member of the board at GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP NETWORK SPACE. Education in US and Italy, second generation of Indians (G2), born-and brought-up-out-of-India, frequent traveler by passion, passionate of sports, desserts, mecha-anime and sci-fi.