Rome Future Week 2025 is a city-wide public festival celebrating innovation, technology, and creativity in Italy's capital. Organised by Unindustria, the employers' association of Rome and the Lazio region, the week-long event runs from 15–19 September 2025 and features conferences, workshops, hackathons, exhibitions, and networking events spread across multiple iconic venues throughout the city.
Rome Future Week demonstrates that the Eternal City's rich historical heritage and its future-facing ambitions are not in conflict but rather deeply complementary. The festival programme spans a wide range of topics, with key themes including smart city solutions tailored to the unique challenges of historic European cities, artificial intelligence and digital transformation across industries, creative industries and cultural innovation leveraging Rome's unparalleled artistic legacy, sustainable tourism management and the use of technology to protect and enhance cultural sites, and start-up ecosystem development in the Lazio region and southern Europe.
The distributed format is a distinctive feature of the festival, with events taking place in venues ranging from historic palazzos to modern co-working spaces and university campuses. This approach allows attendees to experience innovation in context, seeing how technology and tradition coexist across Rome's diverse neighbourhoods.
Rome Future Week is particularly relevant for urban innovation professionals, smart city practitioners working in historic city contexts, cultural heritage technologists, and entrepreneurs seeking to understand the growing innovation ecosystem in Rome and central Italy. Unindustria's strong institutional connections ensure high-level participation from business leaders, government officials, and academic institutions. The festival serves as a vibrant showcase of how one of the world's most celebrated cities is embracing innovation while honouring its extraordinary past.