Challenge@PoliTo_by Firms is an innovative teaching activity carried out at the Politecnico di Torino. It plays a vital role in the PoliTo's strategy to foster innovative education and entrepreneurial culture among students. These activities are organized in collaboration with external firms, which present real life business challenges. The primary objective of these activities is to provide support for early-stage ideas and equip students with the essential skills needed to develop their entrepreneurial ventures. During this experience, up to 30 master’s students are divided into multidisciplinary teams and work, compete, and develop their own solutions. The challenge take place in an experimental educational laboratory: the CLIK - Connection Lab & Innovation Kitchen, where students can experiment and practice what they have learned during their lectures in an informal and multidisciplinary environment which promotes the spirit of creativity and collaboration. Challenge@PoliTo by Firms – Nano I Tech Agentic AI and SLM Optimization: Designing an AI-Native Architecture for Document Analysis in the Insurance Sector The Topic This project redefines automation in the insurance sector. The primary objective is to overcome the structural limitations of public, general purpose LLMs such as variable latency and high scaling costs—by engineering native, intelligent agentic AI workflows. This academic industrial synergy aims to build an architecture capable of orchestrating specialized sub-agents and eliminating interpretative rigidities, thereby ensuring fluid, accurate, and high precision semantic data extraction and comparison for the professional market. Nano-i-Tech leads the initiative, leveraging industrial expertise to accelerate innovation by evolving the Navisio AI ecosystem. The Challenge The central challenge focuses on a targeted transition toward proprietary Small Language Models (SLMs) and/or agentic workflows, securely hosted and vertically trained on the financial and insurance domain. By optimizing Navisio AI’s deep reasoning pathways, the research introduces an advanced orchestration framework built upon three pillars: extraction reliability, domain specific fine tuning, and granular governance control. The ultimate result is the transformation of the platform into an AI native engine where validation cycles and the alignment of similar concepts are no longer hindered by rigid defensive approaches but are empowered for immediate decision-making fluidity.

The main goal is to engage students in learning initiatives which can really bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge acquired in the university environment and the practical skills required by companies to work in a professional setting. Entrepreneurial Culture: Promote the Entrepreneurial culture/behavior on the PoliTo Students. Multidisciplinary Teams: Collaborate in a complex and multidisciplinary context. Information research: Retrieval, Data collection and Utilization of information to support teamwork activities. Hard Skills: Put into practice what they have learned during their lectures to solve a real problem from partner firms. Soft Skills: Teamwork under conditions close to a genuine business environment, self-assessment and work organization. By the end of this activity, students will be better equipped to work in a multidisciplinary team, a skill increasingly sought after, especially multinationals. Furthermore, they will be able to analyze industrial problems with a comprehensive approach, considering both technical and market aspects.

Challenges are open to master’s students of the Politecnico di Torino. Students are required to verify if this specific Challenge recognizes credits for their degree programme. No specific competencies are required to participate. To apply to this activity, the student must upload: ● Covering Letter in English: self-presentation and motivations of interest in the presented Challenge; ● Curriculum Vitae. The students' selection will be based on Cover Letter, CV and multidisciplinary required by the Challenge. The Challenges is entirely held in English.

The Challenges of the second didactic period last 14 weeks; they start in September 2026 and end in January 2027. During the Challenges, students must work in multidisciplinary teams supported by a group of tutors, coming from PoliTo and external partners, with complementary backgrounds and competencies, under the lead of Professor Alberto Monge Roffarello (DAUIN). Each team will have the flexibility to self-organize its own working time and methodology. However, they will be required to spend approximately 1 hour and half per week with mentors, either in the N-idee classroom, a similar space or remotely, in addition to the joint alignment meetings (specified subsequently).

The activity will take place at N-Idee, located in the central building of the Politecnico di Torino (Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24), in a similar space or remotely, with the following schedule: ● Kick-Off & Team Formation (2 consecutive days): the partner company, professor in charge of the activity and tutors will hold a session on the Challenge's issues. Team Building and team formation also take place in this phase to establish multidisciplinary teams. ● Problem Analysis and Idea Creation: teams will have two weeks to analyze the problem in detail. A team of mentors will provide support through weekly meetings. ● Idea Presentation – 1st Work Progress: each team will present the problem and their proposed solution through a pitch. This will be a half day joint alignment meeting. ● Prototyping and Development: teams will meet weekly at N-Idee (or similar space or remotely) together with mentors who will support their project's development. This phase will extend over 11 weeks of teamwork. ● Two Mid-Check Presentations – 2nd and 3rd Work Progress: two half-day joint alignment meetings will be dedicated to discussing the work progress during the Prototyping and Development phase. ● Final Presentation: at the end of the 14 weeks, teams will present their projects through a pitch. This will be a half day joint alignment meeting. Every team will have the flexibility to self-organize its own working time and methodology. However, they will be required to spend approximately 1 hour and half per week with mentors, either in the N-Idee, a similar space or remotely. The Teams, during the Challenge, must hand in the following deliverables: • Three ppts Work Progress: Pitches to explain achieved outcomes and next steps of the project, during work progress meetings. • One monthly report: a monthly report to describe achieved outcomes and next steps. • One ppt Final Presentation: final pitch, during the final presentation, to present the whole work. • One final report: a comprehensive final report on the entire project will be submitted. A standard form will be provided for this purpose. Please note that the outlined structure serves as an example and may be subject to modifications throughout the course of the Challenge.

Modalita di esame: Accertamento (esame senza voto);

Exam: Check;

... Challenge are open to master’s students of the Politecnico di Torino. Credits will be awarded at the end of the Challenge only if the student successfully completes the course. The verification procedure is based on the following criteria: • Development of the project according to an evaluation grid. • Quality of the presentations during the joint meetings. • Reports (monthly and final). • Self-evaluation by team members. Please note that this activity does not have a grade; it is simply marked as passed or not passed.

Gli studenti e le studentesse con disabilita o con Disturbi Specifici di Apprendimento (DSA), oltre alla segnalazione tramite procedura informatizzata, sono invitati a comunicare anche direttamente al/la docente titolare dell'insegnamento, con un preavviso non inferiore ad una settimana dall'avvio della sessione d'esame, gli strumenti compensativi concordati con l'Unita Special Needs, al fine di permettere al/la docente la declinazione piu idonea in riferimento alla specifica tipologia di esame.