Theres an Italy where everything is a problem Where it is an ordeal to open a business, it is discouraging to go to the bank, taxes are suffocating and the State complicates every step you take with your business. There is an Italy where every city criticizes the one next to it, where the north… Read more »
Theres an Italy where everything is a problem
Where it is an ordeal to open a business, it is discouraging to go to the bank, taxes are suffocating and the State complicates every step you take with your business.
There is an Italy where every city criticizes the one next to it, where the north does not want to help the south, where the south feels disadvantaged. Where merchandise travels in trucks on roads blocked by traffic or that have never finished being constructed. Where trains are hardly ever on time and wifi never works.
An Italy where being connected to high-speed Internet is a privilege of the few and where technology in schools is still a mirage.
An Italy where young people dont know English, where they cant find work, and, now, are no longer looking for it. Where young people are too comfortable and relaxed and lack the desire to try harder, contenting themselves with what their parents offer them.
There is an Italy where politics is still only interested in itself, how to resist and hold on to its privileges.
There is an Italy where museums are closed on Sunday and beaches in enchanting locations also closed because local administrations do not maintain their purification systems.
Now, however, I want you to read about the opposite side of this.
Because in the same Italy, at the same time there are people who are opening stores online, books that are written in community or where free wifi is an incredible opportunity activator.
Where some banks create a blog with over one hundred protagonists in innovation
There is an Italy where politics are done at the bottom, opening up data and licenses in order to create fertile terrain for new applications, people get in contact with each other and exploit as much as they can the few resources that we have. An Italy where these people meet at a station of a grand duchy and talk about ideas, without denomination or where, in the past, associations represented a handful of companies but now understand that young people are really the only path that should be followed. Where some Chambers of Commerce organize one of the biggest Maker Faire in the world, while others offer six months of free coworking to young people who want to try to launch their own startup.
There is an Italy where young people are among the best programmers, managers and creators in the world. Who go to Silicon Valley, London, Berlin and China, or Chile, sometimes coming back and sometimes not (because there is nothing wrong with not coming back) or, who sometimes dont leave at all and try to change everything from here by creating new enterprises, reinventing simpler ones or thinking on a larger scale like Dada and Buongiorno a few years back, like Gucci and Ferrari many years ago, and like Wiman, Arduino, MusixMatch, Talent Garden, FreeFuTool today.
There are young people who leave multinational corporations, who invest their parents and friends money, who dedicate themselves entirely to what they do, and if they dont make it they have patience, they will try again or they will go working for a company that is successful.
In this Italy multinationals put their best managers (for free) at tables with startups and with companies, with specific programs they travel around in campers and buses to sold-out events that get all of the areas that once made this country grand involved.
Where wifi has arrived, in spite of everything, in spite of incomprehensible laws, and connecting with Facebook Connect or without passwords has become the norm even in public places, and where telecommunication companies launch programs for startups offering money and connectivity for offices without asking for anything in return.
There is an Italy where something is created every day, where people build one more piece every day, and that Italy is contagious.
Riccardo Luna allowed me to discover this, when, almost two years ago, he gave me the courage to try to do something I had always dreamed about.
This is the bootstrap, this is what we want to talk about every day on www.startupitalia.eu
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