In brief
- On September 17 and 18, L’Espresso brings 98 projects selected from 374 applications to STEP FuturAbility District in Milan.
- Seven pitch competitions alternate with talks involving ministers, lawmakers, local administrators, companies, universities and investors.
- The first day closes with the launch of L’Espresso Academy, developed after the EU Byline pilot experience in Brussels.
- Seven Ideas also illustrates L’Espresso’s wider transformation from a historic weekly into a media company spanning print, digital, live events, training and special projects.
Why it matters
Seven Ideas captures two shifts at once: the attempt to build stronger connections between Italian startups, established companies and institutions, and the evolution of L’Espresso itself. By combining selection, live pitching, mentorship, media support, training and events, the project offers a concrete example of how a historic editorial brand can broaden its role without abandoning journalism.
Some events simply add a date to the calendar. Others reveal a transformation. Sette Idee per cambiare l’Italia — Seven Ideas to Change Italy, the L’Espresso festival held on September 17 and 18, 2026 at STEP FuturAbility District in Milan, belongs to the second category. Over two days, one of the best-known names in Italian journalism brings together 98 innovative projects, major companies, universities, investors, ministers, deputy ministers, undersecretaries, members of the European Parliament, regional presidents, local administrators and political leaders.
The scale is unusual for an Italian newspaper: 22 hours of live programming and seven pitch competitions, with more than 40 judges from investment, business, academia and institutions. A total of 374 projects answered the 2026 call; the scientific committee evaluated 236 and selected 98, fourteen for each of the seven areas. Two finalists per category — fourteen in total — will move on to a mentorship programme before the December 9 final at Rome’s Campidoglio, in the Sala della Protomoteca.
But treating Seven Ideas merely as a startup competition would miss the more interesting point. The festival is perhaps the clearest manifesto of L’Espresso’s current phase: a publication that continues to produce journalism, investigations and analysis, while building around the newsroom a wider ecosystem of print, digital products, events, education, guides, special editions, prizes, podcasts and community initiatives. In other words, not only a weekly magazine, but a media company trying to turn editorial authority and a long history into new products, relationships and public spaces for discussion.
When a newspaper decides not only to report innovation
The logic is straightforward: describing a changing Italy can also mean creating spaces in which change is tested. L’Espresso is not simply publishing articles about startups, the energy transition, artificial intelligence, digital health or fintech. It is building an arena in which founders can meet investors, established corporate leaders and the institutions that shape public policy.
The second edition is significantly larger than the first, which attracted around 300 applications. In 2026 the format becomes a full festival, with two days of programming, seven thematic areas, a substantial institutional and business presence and a process that continues well beyond Milan.
Projects are evaluated using five weighted criteria: social and environmental impact (30%), innovation and originality (25%), business-model strength (20%), team and execution capability (15%) and scalability and growth potential (10%). Each project gets three minutes to pitch and two minutes to answer questions from the jury.
The seven areas
- Independent publishing: new editorial products, formats and business models capable of rethinking magazines and their relationship with new audiences.
- Mobility, energy and infrastructure: the energy transition, movement of people and goods and management of strategic infrastructure.
- Tourism, food and hospitality: technologies and business models for territories, tourism and agri-food value chains.
- AI, industry and space: artificial intelligence, advanced automation, manufacturing and the space economy.
- Finance and insurance: fintech, insurtech, credit access and new financial services.
- Medicine and health: diagnostics, therapies, medical technologies and digital healthcare.
- Education, training and welfare: schools, skills, inclusion and the well-being of people and communities.
The mix matters because it reflects a much broader definition of innovation than software alone. Artificial intelligence is one chapter, not the whole book: alongside it are healthcare, energy, mobility, education, finance, tourism and publishing itself.
Thursday, September 17: the programme
09:00–13:00 — Education, Training and Welfare
The first session opens with greetings from L’Espresso editor Emilio Carelli and Fortunato Costantino, followed by the Education, Training and Welfare pitch competition, split into two groups of seven projects. The official programme includes Minister for Business and Made in Italy Adolfo Urso by video link, Milan Deputy Mayor Anna Scavuzzo, Deputy Justice Minister Francesco Paolo Sisto and Ettore Prandini.
13:00–17:00 — Tourism, Food and Hospitality
The second block is dedicated to tourism and hospitality. Scheduled guests include Minister for European Affairs, the NRRP and Cohesion Policies Tommaso Foti, Francesco Boccia, University of Milan rector Marina Brambilla, Undersecretary Paola Frassinetti and MPs Fabrizio Benzoni and Paolo Romano.
17:00–21:00 — Independent Publishing and the launch of L’Espresso Academy
The evening session features Deputy Infrastructure and Transport Minister Edoardo Rixi, Public Administration Minister Paolo Zangrillo, Benedetto Della Vedova and MEPs Pasquale Tridico and Brando Benifei, together with a discussion involving regional presidents. The day closes with the Independent Publishing pitch competition and a particularly symbolic moment: the launch of L’Espresso Academy, with Nicola Zingaretti among the figures involved in the closing section of the first day.
L’Espresso Academy: from reporting the country to training those who will report it
The Academy, due to begin in 2027, is designed to narrow the gap between university or postgraduate journalism education and the reality of newsroom work, while adding managerial skills to journalistic ones. The proposed model is immersive, with short programmes built around real experiences, travel, institutional settings, press conferences, interviews and operational simulations.
A prototype already exists. In 2026, EU Byline brought more than twenty students from across Italy to Brussels and the European Parliament, where they spent three days working as a real editorial team. It is a model that turns theory into practice and allows an editorial brand to become an infrastructure for talent development as well.
Emanuele Bernava and the practical shape of the new model
Emanuele Bernava, Marketing Director and member of L’Espresso’s board, has a particularly visible role in this evolution. He is one of the figures translating the idea of a “media company” into recognisable projects: events, special editions, guides, training initiatives and formats that extend the brand beyond the traditional weekly magazine.
His approach to the Academy is concrete: close the gap between what aspiring journalists learn and what actually happens in a newsroom, while also addressing the shortage of managerial skills in publishing. That is a contemporary view of the industry. Producing strong journalism today still requires reporting, verification and writing, but it also requires an understanding of audiences, platforms, formats, distribution, live events and sustainable business models.
The commercial numbers suggest that the strategic shift is already material. In March 2026 Bernava told trade media that 2025 advertising revenues had doubled compared with the previous year and that events accounted for around 40% of revenues. That makes live initiatives not a side activity, but one of the pillars of the broader industrial model.
In this sense Bernava represents an important part of the current phase: respect for a seventy-year-old brand, without treating its organisational model as untouchable. The attempt to combine marketing, editorial identity, innovation and community-building is one of the most visible engines of the transformation.
Friday, September 18: four more competitions and the political-economic programme
The second day completes the competition with the remaining four areas: Medicine and Health, Mobility, Energy and Infrastructure, AI, Industry and Space and Finance and Insurance. Pitch competitions remain at the centre of the format, interspersed with institutional and business discussions.
Across the two-day programme, announced participants include Minister for Institutional Reforms Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati, undersecretaries Isabella Rauti, Marcello Gemmato, Alberto Barachini and Luigi Sbarra, Chamber of Deputies Vice President Anna Ascani, Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala and economic-development councillor Alessia Cappello.
MEPs Pierfrancesco Maran and Nicola Zingaretti are also listed, alongside Nicola Fratoianni, Maurizio Lupi, Carlo Calenda, Stefano Candiani, Stefano Patuanelli, Barbara Floridia, Simone Leoni, Bernard Dika and Matteo Hallissey. Former prime ministers Massimo D’Alema and Matteo Renzi are also part of the programme, with Renzi scheduled for the festival’s closing intervention.
The strength of the format lies partly in that proximity. Institutions are not placed in a separate ceremonial track: they share the same space in which startups have just presented products and technologies. The result is an attempt to connect builders, capital and rule-makers within the same programme.
Major companies enter the arena
The industrial dimension of the festival is equally important. Q8 Italia is the main partner. The initiative is backed by the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy, the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security, the City of Milan and Roma Capitale, while major companies, investors, universities and experts take part in evaluating projects and engaging with emerging businesses.
L’Espresso describes the goal as creating an “osmosis” between established companies and startups: mature businesses can bring experience, market knowledge and execution capability; younger firms bring new technologies, speed and business models that larger organisations may struggle to develop as quickly. The editorial brand becomes the bridge between those two worlds.
From Milan to Rome: mentorship and €280,000 in advertising credit
The 14 finalists, two from each area, will enter a mentorship programme between October and November run by Startup Geeks. The programme includes project validation, metrics development, business-plan work and final-pitch preparation.
On December 9, 2026, the competition moves to Rome’s Campidoglio, in the Sala della Protomoteca. One winner will be selected in each of the seven areas.
The total prize is €280,000 in advertising credit: €40,000 for each of the seven winners. It is a prize aligned with the role of a media company. A startup may have a strong product and very limited resources to explain it; L’Espresso can contribute something it owns in abundance — attention, distribution, editorial authority and storytelling capability.
Donato Ammaturo’s bet: transforming a historic asset without turning it into a museum piece
Behind the change in scale is a clear entrepreneurial decision. The Ludoil Group of the Ammaturo family acquired L’Espresso in December 2023. When the publication presented its seventieth-anniversary relaunch in January 2025, the company explicitly described a dual ambition: reinforce the weekly as a journalism product and transform it into a modern media company.
Publisher Donato Ammaturo has therefore chosen not to treat a historic name as something to be preserved behind glass. The harder bet is to use reputation, memory and authority to build something new. It is an ambitious and, in the Italian publishing landscape, genuinely forward-looking industrial vision: taking a publication founded in 1955 and making it live simultaneously in print, digital, podcasts, live events, guides, education and projects focused on innovation.
L’Espresso Media is currently led by chairman and CEO Gianluca Ianuario; its board also includes Emanuele Bernava, Francesco V. Rossi Guarnera and Marco Russo Spena, with Angela Ammaturo as vice chair. Corporate structure and editorial strategy are converging around an increasingly multichannel model.
A newspaper, but also a platform
Seven Ideas is not an isolated project. In the past two years L’Espresso has expanded initiatives extending the brand beyond the weekly magazine: the relaunch of the Inedito literary prize, special editions, L’Espresso Guides, a renewed digital ecosystem, podcasts, live events and now the Academy.
The connecting thread is clear: print remains a pillar, but it is no longer the only place where the publication exists. The relationship with readers also runs through physical experiences, vertical content, communities and training. It is the “phygital” approach the group began formally presenting during the publication’s seventieth-anniversary transformation.
This is why Seven Ideas matters as more than the sum of its panels. The 374 applications, 98 selected projects, 14 finalists, seven eventual winners, mentorship, Campidoglio final, advertising support, business participation and institutional programme all describe a major event. Together, they also describe the transformation of an editorial brand.
Seventy years after its birth, L’Espresso is trying to remain recognisable while changing form. Seven Ideas may be the clearest expression of that process: a historic publication that does not abandon journalism, but decides that its role can also include creating opportunities, training talent, connecting different worlds and helping ideas become companies.
It is a large bet. The scale of Seven Ideas shows just how seriously the new L’Espresso intends to pursue it.
Practical information
- Event: Seven Ideas — The Festival of the Italy that Innovates
- Dates: September 17–18, 2026
- Venue: STEP FuturAbility District, Piazza Adriano Olivetti 1, Milan
- Selected projects: 98
- Areas: 7
- Finalists: 14
- Final: December 9, 2026, Sala della Protomoteca, Campidoglio, Rome
- Prize: €40,000 in advertising credit for each of the seven winners, €280,000 in total
- Admission: free with registration, subject to availability
