Four students from Genoa developed and tested their project with blind and visually impaired individuals in their home city before presenting it at a STEM competition in India.
GENOA, October 28, 2026 – A team of former students from Istituto Calasanzio in Genoa has been selected as one of the four winners of the World Robot Olympiad™ (WRO®) STEM Entrepreneur Program after developing a tactile tablet that enables blind and visually impaired people to create and experience art through touch and sound.
The WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program, powered by Aramco, is a new initiative to bridge the gap between STEM education and entrepreneurship by giving students the opportunity to defend how their technologies work, why they matter, and how they would take their solutions from the competition arena to the market with the objective of solving real-world challenges.
Benedetta Argentoni, 16, Elia Pedemonte, 17, Nicolò Ghio, 17, and Claudio Cassavia, 15, competing as team Mini-Ibot Innovators, developed Omero: The B-Art. The project was inspired by a visit to Palazzo Reale in Genoa, where they encountered a tactile reproduction of a painting and learned how difficult and expensive it is to produce tactile versions of individual artworks.
They initially wanted to make museum artworks accessible through touch. But as the project developed, they saw a broader possibility.
“We wanted to help blind and visually impaired people experience existing artworks. But as we developed Omero, we realized we could go further and give people a way to create their own art through touch and sound,” said Benedetta Argentoni, Mini-Ibot Innovators.
The resulting prototype uses 25 individually controlled points that rise to form a tactile image in response to touch. Sounds can also be associated with colors, adding another sensory element to the experience.
The team tested Omero with four blind and visually impaired volunteers at the David Chiossone Foundation in Genoa, who provided direct feedback on its usability.
Mini-Ibot Innovators presented Omero to entrepreneurs, investors and industry professionals at the WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program in Hyderabad, India, on 28 September. 22 student teams from 13 countries took part, pitching both the technical and practical value of robotics projects developed through WRO’s Future Innovators competition.
“The STEM Entrepreneur Program takes the WRO journey one step further, connecting the skills developed through our competitions with entrepreneurship. Omero shows why this matters: the team combined a strong technical idea with a clear human purpose, tested its prototype with the people it was designed for, and used their feedback to improve it. Working with industry experts gives these young innovators an opportunity to develop their project further and explore how it could reach the people who need it. This is the kind of growth we want to support through WRO in Italy,” said Silvia Cerioni, Founder of the DreamPuzzle Association, the National Organizer for WRO in Italy.
The Italian students were selected as one of the four equal winning teams, alongside teams from the Philippines, India and South Korea. Each winning team receives a $5,000 award and six months of mentoring from industry experts, including investment professionals from Aramco Ventures, the global venturing arm of Aramco, as well as experts from India STEM Foundation and WRO, to help further develop their projects.
The WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program, powered by strategic partner Aramco, bridges STEM education and entrepreneurship by challenging young people to explain not just how their technology works, but why it matters and how it can evolve beyond the competition.
“At Aramco, we believe the future lies in empowering young people. Our STEM Education Global Program enables students to understand science and technology and use it to create, build, and solve. Our strategic partnership with WRO continues to expand, allowing students to take their ideas outside of the classroom, from ideation and prototyping to execution and real-world innovation,” said Hadeel Al-Eisa, Aramco Corporate Citizenship Manager.
Following the inaugural event in Hyderabad, WRO plans to bring the STEM Entrepreneur Program format to National Organizers around the world.
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About the WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program
The WRO STEM Entrepreneur Program is a new program launched as a result of a strategic partnership between Aramco and WRO. It combines robotics, innovation, and entrepreneurship by challenging student teams to present both the technical and practical value of their solutions to a panel of industry professionals. The international event took place in Hyderabad, India, on September 28, 2026. It brought together 22 teams from 13 countries: Ghana, India, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Africa, and Uganda.
About the World Robot Olympiad Association
World Robot Olympiad™ Association (WRO®) is a global non-profit that engages over 175,000 young people across more than 100 countries through hands-on robotics challenges. The competition helps students develop creative problem-solving skills while fostering international collaboration and STEM leadership.
Media Contact
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