Giulio Ranucci is the Head of Innovation at Aeroporti di Roma (AdR), the company managing Rome’s two airports, Fiumicino (FCO) and Ciampino (CIA), with nearly 45 million annual passengers combined.

What makes Giulio’s work at the helm of AdR’s innovation arm particularly interesting, is the very active role that the Italian airport operator is playing in fostering technology innovation in the airport sector.

The initiatives taken by AdR go well beyond Rome and Italy. Its annual startup accelerator programme is open to startups from all over the world and Aeroporti di Roma has also been instrumental in establishing a global network of airports, stretching all the way from Vancouver to Dubai, which share this interest in accelerating innovative systems and solutions with the potential to improve the passengers’ airport experience. This is an area, where, I think many will agree, there is lots of scope for improvement!

In this episode of the podcast to learn how Aeroporti di Roma has structured its startup accelerator, including the setup of a dedicated physical space within the terminal, how the most promising participants can then get funding from AdR Ventures, the firm’s own venture capital arm and, last but not least, how its airports and those in the Airports 4 Innovations network provide a real-world launchpad to test new products and ideas.

Tune in for a deep dive into the world of airport technology acceleration!