On February 28 in Turin, Italy, the project concluded. Upskill Piemonte with the presentation of the four prototypes made, under the guidance of Upskill 4.0, by students of theITS agrifood for Piedmont and of theITS for tourism and cultural activities..
The prototypes were designed for four businesses in the Piedmont region: Biella Agricultural Network Biellese, Hotel Bocciolo at Lake Orta, Flavors of Italy at Lake Maggiore and Gallesio Sandro in the Langhe region.
These are very different businesses but share the same need: to communicate products and services more effectively, enhancing the qualities of the area in which they operate. A challenge that has been taken up with great enthusiasm by ITS students who have responded by devising original ways of communicating that combine digital tools with on-site experiences.
Upskill Piedmont is a project supported by CRT Development and Growth Foundation and conceived and coordinated by Upskill 4.0 with the support of UniCredit. The project was created to promote innovation in sectors that are important to the Piedmont region such as agribusiness and tourism, and at the same time to grow the technical and professional skills of young people.
We come to the event. To present, Selena Brocca, Upskill 4.0 account manager, who immediately gave the floor to Giovanni Quaglia, President CRT Foundation, who recalled the strong commitment to territories and the need for their revitalization. Next, Cristina Giovando, President of Fondazione Crescita e Sviluppo, which carries out for Fondazione CRT a number of social impact projects supporting the entire Piedmont region, pointed out the difficulties of the Italian labor market where, according to international studies, 4 out of 10 companies cannot find young people with the necessary skills. According to Giovando, technical training provided by ITS can make an important contribution in this direction. Ivana Morando, head of non-academic higher education at Regione Piemonte, stressed how much the region is betting on an idea of generative education, and recalled the work done by Elena Chiorino, Regional Councillor for Education and Merit, Labor and Training, who gave impetus to the ITS Academy system and, with a view to creating a vertical supply chain system, created the Academies, a system dedicated to vocational training of the highest level, to respond concretely to the needs of companies and, at the same time, offer qualifying employment to thousands of young people, and not only, who have just come out of training courses.
Stefano Micelli, executive chairman of Upskill 4.0, said that to meet the challenges of the labor market, it is necessary to combine training and innovation. If you combine the technical culture of ITS with a design methodology such as Design Thinking it becomes possible to tackle complex innovation projects that can provide students with a path to growth and companies with usable solutions.
Buying the latest technology is no longer enough; businesses need young people with the right skills and awareness. "With Upskill Piemonte," Micelli reiterated, "we have given ourselves an extra goal: not only to encourage the meeting between students and businesses but also to involve the territory and promote new development trajectories."
The time for presentations has come. Upskill 4.0 project managers and ITS students took the stage to present their completed projects.
For the enterprise Gallesio Sandro, Agnese Giorello, Davide Coniglio, Ronald Kamseudjomo and Davide Cordero, students from ITS agri-food for Piedmont, supervised by Tiziana Obici, project manager of Upskill 4.0, implemented the project "
"Gentle Storytelling. Alta Langa and the IGP Piedmont Hazelnut," a series of online (such as video recipes) and offline formats to "bring" this family business closer to new customers by enhancing the territory and the many benefits that the IGP Piedmont Hazelnut can have. The students came up with a new communication project that starts from the website and goes through the creation of talking label with QR code and comes to the definition of a package of new experiences such as yoga in the hazelnut grove. "We have been amazed by the perseverance and dedication the students have put into this project; the results match our expectations," said Lorenza Gallesio, who with her father Sandro oversees the company's activities.
For Biella Agricultural Network again the students of ITS Agribusiness for Piedmont designed, again with the support of Sofia Ressia, a strategy to bring out the territoriality, traceability and wholesomeness of products and the value of producers linked to this Network, proposing "Biella as the valley of good and healthy" (this is the title of the project). Thanks to the integration of the network's website, a narrative label to tell the story of the supply chain, and a new social communication campaign, the aim was to tell the story of the Network through three key words: transparency, values, and trust. According to Roberto Mercandini of Rete Agricola Biellese, the design solution fully met their needs: "We know how to do our job well, we thought we would also be able to communicate it, but we don't: these guys brought a completely different vision than we do, we often focus on our positions, while they have a fresh look."
For Hotel Bocciolo, Elena Patrucco, Valentino Ianniciello and Francesco Mansi of ITS for Tourism and Cultural Activities created, thanks to the support of Sofia Ressia, project manager of Upskill 4.0, a new visual identity that focuses on enhancing the services of the hotel and promoting the Lake Orta area as a tourist destination, where to live experiences related to wellness and relaxation, starting also from the accommodation. Nature, relaxation, activities and experiences and familiarity are the key words that guided the implementation of the project, entitled "A Lake of Opportunities." For Alberto Pullano, director of the hotel, seeing their facility through the eyes of the students was a great opportunity: "The students also interviewed many of our historical clients, who often only give us compliments, instead with the students they felt free to make suggestions, and this is valuable for us."
For the tourist agency Flavors of Italy of Stresa, students from ITS for Tourism and Cultural Activities presented with Tiziana Obici, the project manager who has been following them over the past few months, a solution that aims to launch and promote the province of Verbano-Cusio-Ossola as a destination for cycling tourism lovers through a series of elements, including: a series of filters to be placed within the Sapori d'Italia Agency website, the creation of a "forum" section for cycling tourism lovers to be able to give each other advice on routes to follow, and a QR code to be placed on the handlebars. For Michela Modena, owner of the agency, the project is a good starting point. "I am very amazed at what the guys managed to do, they know how to work in the web and how to reach the end user. It was good to confront with them, they gave a lot of insights on how to solve certain problems."
After the presentations were over, the following spoke Stefano Gallo, Head of Territorial Development at UniCredit who said: "We are very pleased to have participated in the Piedmont Upskill project. This project is part of our strategy directed at fostering innovation in territories and their revitalization..