Major milestones

1994

First Heliodon

Giulio Maria Podestà build a manual wooden heliodon to experiment the sun exposure of a building which was about to be build in the centre of Milan. The project was developed for the Technology of Architecture course.

1997/8

First Artificial Sky

In 1997/8, Podestà graduated with honours with a project based on the design and construction, on his own, of a steel and wooden prototype, partially operating, of a new artificial sky, so called scanning, because the sky was made up of parts that were reproduced using a scanning process which decomposed it in more than 140 round parts. The prototype, which is made of a steel bolt-on frame and wooden infills was successively refined in its electronic commands.

2001

First working group

He put together a working group, initially called IEM and then renamed augenvi based in Piacenza.

The team won an annual scholarship for the start of a business with high content of innovation sponsored by Spinner.

Augenvi team took part in its first exhibition Fortronic 2003 in Padua.

2004

Foundation of the company: Beta Nit

From the initial group of nine people, Podestà and two other partners set up Beta Nit srl in Lodi.

2005

Fairs and a breakthroughs illuminator

February, Beta Nit took part, upon invitation of the Spinner and of the Catholic University, in the first edition of the fair R2B . The news channel La7 showed our simulator at the stand.

April, Beta Nit participated in the electronics exhibition Fortronic 2005 in Padua with the Spinner Consortium.

November at IENA fair in Nuremberg, Beta Nit showed one of world the first 100W white HB-LEDs illuminator, made up of 100 elements was shown in operation, as integral part of the artificial sky (called Sun and Sky Compact Simulator), in operation. A silver medal was awarded to the company .

2006

Light and Building and Eurosun

In February, Beta Nit participated in Sparkles of Future at Palazzo Farnese, Piacenza an exhibition of new local technologies.

In April, the company attended the fair Light + Building in Frankfurt. The simulator of natural light attracted the attention of researchers and scientists who came from all over the world, but in particular from Asia and expressed great interest. The working device, even if it did not have yet a data collection system, was shown to many selected potential customers.

In May, Beta Nit returned at R2B, as a guest of Spinner and Aster .

In June, Podestà introduced the project of the artificial sky to the qualified audience of the EuroSun 2006 conference in Glasgow.

In November, the artificial sky was presented to another international conference: AIDI in Venice.

In December, the event organiser Spazio Service invited Beta Nit to take part in an educational exhibition at the scientific laboratories of LEAP.

2007

Orange Heliodon

The first version of Orange heliodon is released.

2008

Projection system

An innovative projection system for large venue is developed with multiple digital light projectors and based on custom software runnning on HPC computer (a cluster of nine computers).

2009

IES award and microcar product

Podestà won an IES award for the project of Tavazzano Cathedral, where was installed a projection system on the ceiling of over 400sqm.

In collaboration with DiAP department of Politecnico di Milano was developed a micro car for endoscopic exploration of urban scale models.

2010

A new organization: nitter

Beta nit became a brand of Nitter, a new and simplier organization owned by Podestà (already CEO of Beta Nit), based in Piacenza. Nitter is focused on design and making from the ground-up custom and innovative lighting instruments.

2011-

Custom simulators for world renowned daylighting laboratories

Our most representative customers.

  • Daylighting laboratory at University of United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Al Ain).
  • BEARS (Berkeley Education Alliance for Research in Singapore) University of California at Berkeley (UCB), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), and the National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore.
  • CARBSE (Centre for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy) at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, India.
  • LEEA (Laboratory for Energy and Environment in Architecture) at University of Sonora, Mexico.
  • Arup Lighting, London.