An award for women entrepreneurs, a green hydrogen project in the heart of petrochemical Sicily, a technology company founded in Catania in 1986, when the word startup was not yet in the business lexicon. The third edition of the “Lympha – Raffaella Mandarano” Award can be read like this: not just a call for applications, but a short circuit between past and future.
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The award, dedicated to the Catania-born manager who passed away in January 2024, is aimed at women between 18 and 35 years old with projects of high social, environmental, and technological impact. Applications will remain open until September 16, 2026. The award ceremony is scheduled for October 9 in Catania. The winner will receive 2,000 euros and a four-month incubation program, worth 10,000 euros.
The story behind the award
So much for the news. Then there’s the industrial story. Giuseppe Mario Patti, Raffaella Mandarano’s husband and founder of the Lympha Award to commemorate her vision, summarizes it thus: «The South can anticipate».
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Patti is a civil and hydraulic engineer, a specialist in automation and remote control systems for water and gas networks. In 1986, Mandarano founded Proteo with him and other young graduates. The field was hydroinformatics: hydraulics, hydrology, and computer science applied to water management. Today, we would talk about innovation for utilities. Back then, it was a pioneering gamble.
«Talent and technology don’t need to emigrate to exist. They need a network,» says Patti. This is the phrase that takes the discussion out of commemoration and into the real economy: skills, businesses, critical mass.
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