Gaetano Lapenta, founder and CEO of the Italian startup Fybra, is among the “change makers” who received the Financial Times Responsible Business Education Awards 2022.
Fybra is an innovative startup that aims to improve air quality in closed spaces by exploiting natural ventilation and optimizing ventilation systems. Thanks to advanced sensors and predictive and adaptive algorithms, Fybra purifies the air in places such as schools, offices and even private homes, ensuring healthiness, comfort and energy efficiency.
Fybra’s highly innovative and 100% Italian patent is the product of the creativity and hard work of Gaetano Lapenta and Fybra co-founder and CTO Marco Scaramelli. The two innovators found a way to combine advanced technology, a user-friendly approach and a mission that looks both at public health and scientific education.
Lapenta and Scaramelli created Fybra after obtaining an executive MBA at Italy’s Politecnico di Milano School of Management in 2019. To date, almost 1500 Fybra sensors have been installed in the classrooms of 120 Italian schools distributed in 13 provinces. The project involves 30 thousand students.
Gaetano Lapenta is the only Italian entrepreneur to have received one of the Financial Times awards dedicated to strong examples of work by business schools seeking to focus on people and planet alongside profit.
“I had the idea of founding Fybra while I was attending the Graduate School of Business of the Politecnico di Milano” said Gaetano Lapenta to Italian press agency AISE.
“The skills acquired during my studies were essential to help me transform an idea into a concrete entrepreneurial reality and successfully launch it on the market. Creating Fybra was a life choice in every sense, which led me and my team to quit our previous job to become entrepreneurs. Behind Fybra there is great passion and the desire to have a positive impact on society by improving the quality of the air we breathe” concluded Gaetano Lapenta.
The other winners of the Financial Times Award are Johanna Baare for the Spanish IE Business School, George Boghos for the University of Chicago, Booth and Elisa Dierickx for the French Insead, while Chaoxing David Fu of the Chinese Ceibs was awarded a special mention.
