Created to teach business culture in an informal environment, involving secondary school students in a new educational path, the 2015/2016 Business Garden will take place at the Serre dei Giardini Margherita (via Castiglione, 136) and will articulate in 4 phases: the summer camp organized in two intensive weeks in June-July (June 29-July 10) and one at the end of August (August 24-28); a period of project development in autumn; The financing of the most deserving projects and a subsequent one acceleration path for funded ideas.
About a hundred applications have been received: after the interviews of the past months, 60 third and fourth year Italian secondary school students have been admitted to the second edition of the informal school. They will follow theoretical, practical and project work lessons, divided into 10 /12 groups (maximum of 5/6 members each), followed by tutors and teachers. The applications came from 6 provinces (Bologna, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Forlì, Ferrara, Ravenna); 18 schools of origin (for Bologna Galvani high school, Fermi high school, San Vicenzo de' Paoli high school, ITC Rosa Luxenburg, ITC Salvemini of Casalecchio di Reno, IIS Archimede of San Giovanni in Persiceto, ISI Caduti of the Direttissima of Castiglione dei Pepoli; for Reggio Emilia Ariosto Spallanzani high school, Aldo Moro high school, IPSSC Filippo Re; for Modena ITIS Fermi, Morando Morandi scientific high school and ITS Calvi di Finale Emilia; for Forlì Paulucci de Calboli high school; for Ferrara Ariosto high school; Ricci Curbastro high school, IPS Stoppa, ITI Compagnoni for Lugo di Ravenna). The schools become part of the "friendly schools" circuit of the Business Garden.
The 2015/16 edition aims to stimulate young people to develop innovative solutions to support the internationalization of small and medium enterprises in the Italian food sector. In particular, the project work will have to develop an innovative and potentially entrepreneurial project idea in order to improve the fruit production chain in Emilia-Romagna, with a view to an internationalization process of the small and medium-sized enterprises and consortium members that are part of it. The idea will have to be developed starting from contemporary consumption scenarios, focusing on packaging, marketing, distribution and sales tools. The goal will be to make local fruit a commercially more attractive product in global markets, enhancing the quality of Made in Italy, without compromising its organoleptic characteristics and using methods and solutions that lead to product and/or process innovations. The potential company will be able to combine the different areas of packaging (from a technical-technological and design point of view), marketing, distribution and sales to achieve the objective.
“Today, an adequate basic technical preparation, a good level of schooling and good grades are no longer enough,” he explains Antonio Danieli, general manager of the Golinelli Foundation and president of the Board of Trustees of the EUREKA Trust – Business Garden. "On the other hand, it is fundamental and essential in an educational and training path of excellence - he adds - to provide for the teaching, or rather the stimulation, of the so-called soft skills, that is, the most distinctive skills of "being a person" tout court, and of the capabilities, that is, specific individual abilities, propensities, aptitudes and intellectual, behavioral and character talents, which each individual can then play across in multiple areas. These skills and capabilities are those sought after by companies and are the same as the basis of the most successful individual career paths. Here then is the objective of the Business Garden: to stimulate and encourage young people to develop these indispensable skills to face the complexity and unpredictability of the future in a global and multicultural world: responsibility, study and work ethics, critical spirit, imagination, curiosity, passion, leadership, autonomy, problem solving, decision making, critical thinking, team work, team building, communication, entrepreneurship, flexibility, knowing how to do and experimenting, knowing how to make mistakes and learning, knowing how to convert”. Finally, he concludes, "on an experimental basis we have decided to launch a certification of the skills developed by the participants with CINECA: through the attribution of an e-badge to be shared on social networks and to be included in the future e-portfolio as already happens in the main universities foreign".
“We believe that children's futures are built from an early age and the stimuli and opportunities offered by society also contribute to it, together with their families and teachers. In particular in this case – as the Emilian Romagna Group of the Cavalieri del Lavoro and as Entrepreneurs, says the president Mark Vacchi – we believed in the project created by the Golinelli Foundation, since – as in all the initiatives we address to studious young people – we hope for a virtuous contamination between school and the productive world through the diffusion of a culture more conducive to the entrepreneurial spirit".
“In July, our city will welcome dozens of young, creative minds who will try their hand at transforming their ideas into entrepreneurial projects. These kids who preferred an innovative training moment to the holiday – he says Tiziana Ferrari, general manager of Unindustria Bologna – thanks to the worthy initiative of the Business Garden they will share an experience different from the routine, which will give them a further key to understanding their professional growth path”.
Summer Camp: June-August 2015
The camp will offer teachings, testimonials and practical activities and will serve to provide the cultural, theoretical and methodological foundations for the development of an original business idea. Ample space will be reserved for group project work. The camp will last 3 weeks, with daily attendance, from Monday to Friday, 7 hours a day for a total of 70 hours of lessons. The main topics will be: corporate culture, technological innovation, technical-scientific subjects, project work and research. In addition to the lessons, the camp includes a full day visit to H-Farm, the first reality in Italy for the incubation of innovative companies (in the province of Treviso). At the end of this phase, the groups will have to define their project idea, albeit still in general terms.
Summer camp teachers
- Francesco Baschieri, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Spreaker
- Nicola Bonazzi, Teatro dell'Argine-ITC Teatro San Lazzaro, Bologna
- Ferdinando Buscema, magic experience designer
- Giuseppe Cappiello, researcher in the Business Sciences Department of the University of Bologna
- Flaviano Celaschi, full professor of Design at the Architecture Department of the University of Bologna
- Giovanni Emanuele Corazza, full professor at the University of Bologna, founder of the Marconi Institute for Creativity
- Luca De Biase, journalist, editor Nòva 24 Il Sole 24 Ore
- Riccardo De Leo, PhD candidate at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia
- Paolo Di Cesare, entrepreneur, designer, co-founder of NATIVA, the first Italian Certified B corporation
- Riccardo Donadon, founder of H-Farm
- Simone Ferriani, professor of Economics and Business Management Department of Business Sciences University of Bologna, Honorary Visiting Professor Cass Business School (London)
- Maurizio Fiorini, associate professor at the University of Bologna, scientific director of Lab4Pack (Imola)
- Alain Marenghi, graduate in Political Economy with master's degree in Local Development Economics, lecturer for young startuppers in the Youth Guarantee program
- Alberto Onetti, president of Mind the Bridge Foundation and professor at the University of Insubria
- Matilde Ratti, lawyer
- Francesca Rizzo, senior researcher in the Architecture Department, degree course in Industrial Product Design, University of Bologna
- Davide Viaggi, associate professor of agricultural economics and appraisal at the University of Bologna
- Elisabetta Vianello, lawyer, Ph.D. consultant for companies, startups and associations, expert in intellectual property and corporate legal forms
- Alan Borsari, entrepreneur and dynamic freelancer, co-founder of Radioimmaginaria
Project development: September-November 2015
The students will participate in a course to better develop their design idea, defining its added value within the reference market, the technical and technological aspects, the business model. This phase will be characterized by weekly meetings, in the afternoon, to be held face-to-face or remotely, during which the members of the groups will work, continuing to exchange views with the tutors. At the end of this phase, the groups will present their project ideas, thus applying for funding to move on to the concrete realization of the prototype.
Competition of ideas and funding: November-December 2015
A jury made up of members of the Golinelli Foundation, H-Farm, the Emiliano Romagna Group of the Cavalieri del Lavoro and Unindustria will choose up to 3 winning projects which will receive funding (variable from 6 to 10 thousand euros). The selected projects will be included in the accelerator of the Business Garden. All candidate projects will be presented on 23 November during an event open to the public, during which the winners will be announced.
Acceleration path: December 2015-May 2016
The most deserving business ideas, in addition to funding for the creation of the prototype and business creation costs, will be included in an acceleration path characterized by training, tutorship and mentorship activities. Groups will be given the opportunity to have spaces and technologies dedicated to the Golinelli Opificio, the new center of the Golinelli Foundation's main training, educational and cultural activities. This path will take place in collaboration with the respective schools, Unindustria and H-Farm.
