They are called Marika De Marco, Simone Nazzareno Perri, Elisa Fristachi and Margherita Riga: they are the four Calabrian university students who will fly to California, for two weeks of full immersion in the most innovative realities of Silicon Valley. These are the winners of the four scholarships assigned by the ‘L’OroDicalabria’ Association at the end of the Summer School ‘can already be done’. Four days of workshops, workshops and evening talk to offer young people the opportunity to transform their ideas into real projects.
To win the overseas journey, made available by Innovit, the team called “Careviva”: his project is to accompany families in the path that leads to the adoption of children, helping them to face and overcome all the difficulties that often force to abandon the idea of becoming parents. “But you are all winners, albeit without a plane ticket. You are all an important piece of the new Calabria and we will collaborate”, the scientific director Francesco Verderami has kept us by contacting the other 20 university students who animated the second edition of the initiative, held again this year at Belvedere Marittimo (CS). “The future, even ours, is in the hands of the girls and boys of Calabria, today there is the awareness of an entrepreneurial ability, it is the one we want to put in place,” underlined the president of the association ‘L’OroDicalabria’ Ernesto Magorno.
Divided into six working groups for four days, the students have developed as many projects in different fields and can now be included among the start -ups that the incubator of the University of Calabria accompanies their growth path.
Just Unical is the protagonist, together with the other two universities of Catanzaro and Reggio Calabria, of ‘L’OroDicalabria’. “The University of Cosenza is today a living and pulsating reality, he has overcome all expectations – explained the president of the Sapienza Foundation of Rome, Eugenio Gaudio -. His activity has spread to the territory”. This is demonstrated by the data that the rector Nicola Leone has listed. In the last six years, the registrations in Arcavacata have grown by 30%, graduates who have found work have increased by 12%, 14 innovative courses have been started, there are 11 international degrees in English, this year the medical faculty with 850 members also debuts, and recently the EU has assigned the University a sort of “quality sticker” recognizing that it is “an ideal environment for research”. Teachers from all over the world arrive. However, the flagship of the Unical is not only the teaching but also the ability to bridge the world of work: “We work a lot with the Calabria region to attract investments, companies turn to us because we have graduates of the highest quality and collaborate with our workshops to do research”, claims lion proudly. Second in Italy for the innovative ecosystem, UNICAL has also obtained 120 million to take on new researchers, then in November it will open up to Rende the “Innovation Palace” intended for SMEs. “Studying is a great investment and is important – said the rector of the Cosenza University – adapting courses to the needs of the production world. In Calabria there is a deficit of entrepreneurial culture, experiences such as the Summer School ‘can already be done’ are therefore very important, because it is essential to transform ideas in reality”.
“Calabria has the opportunity to transform itself from a suburban to a border”, the forecast of the representative of Innovit Pasquale Scaramuzzino, it was he who offered the scholarships in Silicon Valley: “You will touch what you can do with your hand – he explained to the 4 winning students – you will have interlocutions with the CEO of large companies, in short, you will become ‘spectators’ from spectators”. Protagonists, such as the fathers of Gipstech, a Calabrian start -up that took its first steps in 2013 by developing a geolocation system with which it then even landed in Japan: here, together with NTT Data, the contract for an airport was awarded, to which was added that of Malpensa in Italy as well as other customers of the caliber of highway, to mention an example. They were awarded the first edition of the “L’Oroicolalab Award”, an iron and bronze Calabrian olive tree made by Maestro Cosimo Allera, which the association allocates to entrepreneurs who stand out for their business. Appointment next year.