Paolo supports Vita Accelerator with his expertise in Acceleration programs, startup ecosystem building and their development. Paolo wrote his first line of code at the age of 7 and trained his first neural network in 1995. He has invested his entire 24-year career in digital innovation－spanning research, tech startups, and consulting for corporations and governments on startup engagement and innovation processes. Dr. Lombardi holds a double PhD in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence from the Universities of Pavia, Italy, and Paris Sud, France (2003), and he was a Fulbright Fellow at Santa Clara University, California (2008).

He co-founded two startups of his own before creating the startup accelerator Techpeaks in the Italian Alps, in 2012, together with an international team including investors (LDV Capital, Earlybird Venture Capital) and research stakeholders (University of Trento, FBK – Bruno Kessler Foundation). After this experience Paolo moved to design and manage over two dozen other programs with corporations and public institutions, including projects with the World Bank, the European Commission, and Italy’s main telco operator TIM. He is an external lecturer of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Polytechnic University of Milan, Bocconi Business School, and the University of Trento, Italy. He has co-authored the book Startup Program Design for McGraw-Hill (USA, 2022).