Young people are mines of ideas; universities are the places where these ideas take shape; companies the context where they can become reality. From this premise moves Icaro, a free business course for university students that kicks off today in the spaces of the Opificio, the citadel of knowledge in via Nanni Costa in Bologna. The Golinelli Foundation has once again provided wings, around 70 thousand euros in funding, and an ambitious goal, i.e. an Italian way for Open Innovation, to a project that is unique on the national scene. 2016 is the year zero of an experiment that will last seven months and will involve 33 students from the humanities and science faculties of the Bolognese university.
“With Icaro – says Antonio Danieli, director of the Golinelli Foundation – we want to create a new paradigm for small and medium-sized Italian companies, so that they are open to external ideas, those of the most motivated young people. At the same time we want to give the kids the opportunity to put themselves to the test, to invent solutions, to deal with real problems, to work as a team. Icaro shortens times and revolutionizes the classic path of the transition from knowledge to business, which first saw training, then research, finally production. These steps no longer mature one after the other, but together. We intend to bring young people closer to traditional Italian productions to contribute to their innovation".
The world of Icarus is inhabited by many creatures: by 33 fresh but immature minds, which can mature in various company gyms; by AidAF (Italian Association of Family Businesses), which fully embraced the initiative; from the University of Bologna, which believes in this bet; by the Group of Young Industrialists of Assobiomedica; but above all by three companies involved in a logic of Open Innovation. These are Sebia Italia and Theras Group, both in the medical device sector, and Banca Patrimoni Sella & C. of the Banca Sella Group.
These companies have real problems to solve and ideas to put on the table. Each has two teams of students at its disposal to find the right path. The outcome is not obvious: solutions can be found; patenting inventions; create jobs; maybe in the end we will have to throw everything in the trash. What will certainly remain, in the educational heritage of university students, but also in that of companies, is the stretch of road traveled together. The awareness of what one is capable of doing, of what one can accomplish immediately or tomorrow. In short, a step will have been added to the ladder that leads to the future.
“It is no coincidence – says Marino Golinelli, president of the foundation of the same name – if the world's large and innovative companies go to the top-ranking universities to solicit the best students to immediately enter the world of production, where there is a need for freshness and not of culture crystallized in old socio-economic schemes and paradigms”.
Kids have a great deal of creativity, says Golinelli, and we need to reason and experiment with them in order to produce useful things, within everyone's reach. Icaro will have as lecturers international experts, academics, successful entrepreneurs, but also actors or sports aces. There were 150 applications from students who had arrived, and 33 who were chosen, aged between 19 and 25 years. The faculties of origin are agriculture, biotech/biomedical, engineering, economics, communication science, product design, fine arts, psychology, law, humanities.
The project is divided into three full-immersion sessions, interspersed with periods of remote and autonomous work; classroom moments, coaching by mentors, workshops and meetings with entrepreneurs. A fundamental point is the development of an entrepreneurial project (project work) stimulated by real themes posed by partner companies looking for innovative solutions. Organized into interdisciplinary working groups, students also work independently supported by specialized mentors (successful entrepreneurs, under 40, active in the ICT technology sector) and in contact with the companies involved.
Icaro uses the Design thinking study methodologies: application of design techniques to solving problems in all areas of life, from the creation of products or services to the exploration and definition of a business.
