Upskill Vicenza

Enhancing Vicenza's supply chains with ready-to-use solutions

The goal was to support SMEs in the jewelry, ceramics, publishing, and fashion industries with tested prototypes, operational guidelines, and clear roadmaps, leveraging intergenerational dialogue. Senior workers shared their tacit knowledge and workshop practices, while ITS and university students brought digital methods, rapid prototyping, and new languages. This exchange accelerated adoption within the company, reduced decision-making times, and opened up opportunities in the markets, transforming the collaboration into a true passing of the baton.

Vicenza, an international benchmark for goldsmithing

Vicenza is a European hub for jewelry and a manufacturing area with a strong export focus. In this ecosystem, competitive strength depends on the ability to integrate tradition and innovation. Upskill Vicenza responded by setting up teams in which master craftsmen and young technicians worked side by side, translating know-how into documented processes and field-tested digital tools, thus making the transfer of skills a stable asset for businesses.

From processes to prototypes

Among the numerous projects launched, some cases clearly illustrate the method and intergenerational exchange that characterized the program. In the goldsmith sector, Daniela Vettori's workshop worked on responsible packaging capable of expressing the value of jewelry and reducing waste: skilled workers and students selected materials, defined requirements, and tested a concept ready for adoption, consistent with the brand's identity. In ceramic design, Lineasette addressed brand positioning by intertwining product memory with the expectations of younger customers. The joint analysis of processes resulted in clear guidelines for channels and messages and an implementation roadmap that reinforces the brand's continuity. For Botteganove, a ceramic art workshop in the Nove district, the work made the workshop accessible with digital tools, creating an interactive tour and an augmented catalog that show the stages and quality of the work, enhancing the transmission of knowledge between masters and the new skills of the junior teams. Alongside these, other projects have involved publishing and export, following the same didactic trajectory: visits, process mapping, user research, concept, prototyping, and testing, with operational documentation and metrics that make intergenerational exchange a stable mechanism for innovation.

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