Three finalists, one stage, and a room full of founders and investors from Italy and the United States. On 14 October 2026, at Palazzo Brancaccio in Rome, Aven was one of the three finalists for the Impact Startup Award at the Genesis Accel Innovation Summit, and it came away with the Search On special prize.
The prize is a stand at AI Festival 2027, the artificial intelligence festival organized by WMF – We Make Future, in Milan on 11 and 12 February 2027. Aven will be there as an invited exhibitor.
A summit called Be Human
Now in its second edition, the summit is organized by Genesis Accel, the U.S. startup accelerator founded and led by Ernesto Di Giambattista, and looks at building companies between Italy and the United States. This year’s theme, Be Human, asked how artificial intelligence and human intelligence can grow together. The Impact Startup Award is reserved for high-potential startups driving industrial, social or technological change.
It is a question close to Aven’s own. Aven uses artificial intelligence for a very human purpose: bringing people closer to other people.
What the prize confirms
“This win confirms the value of what we’re building with Aven.”
Karim Aoudj presented Aven on stage. For the team, the prize is more than a stand. “This win confirms the value of what we’re building with Aven,” he says. “Seeing the enthusiasm of the American investors in the room, and of Ernesto Di Giambattista, as they listened to our project was proof of what Aven does for people: it gives them the chance to get to know others and to communicate with them.”
Lisbon in November, Milan in February
The next stop is Lisbon. From 9 to 12 November, IUMI will take Aven to Web Summit 2026, within the Italian collective organized by ICE, the Italian Trade Agency. Then, in February, Milan: two days at AI Festival 2027, with a stand of its own.
Anyone in Lisbon or Milan is invited to come and meet the team. In the meantime, the Aven waitlist is open.