---
title: A week in San Francisco with Regione Toscana and INNOVIT
author: Giacomo Balli
published: 2026-10-09
url: https://BigBalli.com/blog/a-week-in-san-francisco-with-regione-toscana-and-innovit
tags: Startups, Product, Leadership, Business, Community
---

# A week in San Francisco with Regione Toscana and INNOVIT

*By Giacomo Balli* | *Published: October 9, 2026*

What a week.

From September 28th to October 2nd, we had the opportunity to experience San Francisco thanks to Regione Toscana and the incredible team at INNOVIT - Italian Innovation and Culture Hub.

It was an amazing week — intense, challenging, exhausting at times, but one that will leave a mark on me.

A special thank you to the entire INNOVIT team for an incredible program, filled with inspiring panels, high-level speakers and opportunities to learn from people with truly remarkable experience and expertise.
And a special thank you to Leandro Agro and Carlo Rivis, who guided us throughout the entire week, and to Pancrazio Auteri for the pitch sessions and all the valuable work behind them.
One of the most meaningful parts of this experience was the people we shared it with. The other startups in the program quickly became much more than just fellow founders. We built a special relationship, sharing challenges, ideas, laughs and moments that I will carry with me.

The mentor sessions with Robb Miller, Gaia Montelatici (she/her), Alessandro Cannas and 🐗 Giacomo Balli, MBA gave us new perspectives, valuable feedback and plenty of ideas to take home and work on.

The Shark Tank session was another incredibly valuable experience, with high-level judges (George Parrish, Maria Pienaar, Amelia Di Stefano, Leonardo Rocchetti) who challenged us with thoughtful questions and shared interesting and constructive feedback. It was a great opportunity to look at our business from different perspectives and understand where we can improve.

And then, the Demo Day.
An incredible opportunity to introduce Joppys to many new people, receive valuable feedback and create meaningful connections through networking.

I’m coming home tired, but with something much more important: new friendships, new ideas, new motivation and an even stronger belief in what we are building with Joppys.

San Francisco is not the destination.
It’s a starting point.

See you next time, San Francisco.
Arrivederci. 🇮🇹🇺🇸

#innovit #sanfrancisco #startup #networking #pets #joppys

[Discuss on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7512918395575599105)

---

**Tags:** Startups, Product, Leadership, Business, Community

---

*View the [HTML version](https://BigBalli.com/blog/a-week-in-san-francisco-with-regione-toscana-and-innovit) of this post.*