The Resistance, the popular armed movement for the liberation from Nazi-Fascism, is the founding myth of the Italian Republic. Almost all Italian political leaders after WW2 had been partisans or supported the resistance although they lived abroad as dissidents. Italians united for once in their long history of factions and divisions.
Hopefully not so far in the future we will remember Francesco Profumo (Minister of Education and Innovation in the Monti Government 2012 – 13) as one of the first leaders of the second resistance that turned the tide of recession, austerity and general despair into a new Renaissance.
Despite the crisis he has been championing reforms and public investments especially for young people from the beginning. On Thursday he presented the results of a year of work: La via Italiana alla social innovation.
I was there as a foreign guest speaker and it was an unique experience. For the first time in my life I agreed with the vision of an Italian politician. I was happy to be reunited to my folk.
Making the comparison to WW2 I expose myself too all sorts of criticism. Besides that you know I’m not afraid of the front-line I believe that what we are leaving across Europe and in Italy in particular is comparable to the tsunami that people had to go through during in ’30s – ’40s. That German Government is far from being comparable to Nazism and Italian political elite has little to do with Fascism is not in doubt. However their combined action is bringing Italian society and the whole of Europe in disarray.
Cyprus is the most recent but not the last in the list of causalities in the transformation of European liberal democracies. The system built after WW2 is untenable and needs a radical overhaul. But the political elite seems meddling through with not plan for a 21st century Europe instead of leading the ship through the storm.
People can accept the harshest sacrifices but need to know that the light expects them on the other side. There is no future without hope. And hope it’s not what leaders are able to give anymore.
Profumo, instead, has brought light in the darkness. Perhaps is just a candle but he started a reform agenda to invest for the future.
He innovated in the methodology to start appointing a taskforce – Prof Mario Calderini and 6 young professionals selected for their personal merits through an open competition – to design an ‘innovative’ innovation agenda. The agenda is based on forms of innovation developed by and for society and is inspired by good practice from across the world: impact investing, crowdfunding, social impact, online engagement, clustering and acceleration, Big Data, prize challenges etc.
Then he put money where his mouth was investing over €70m in social innovation projects of which €25m just for young people under 30s.
He even fostered change in the culture of the Italian civil service to put the citizen at the centre of public policy. Fabrizio Cobis, mandarin of the Ministry, emotionally confessed at the launch: ‘Working with these people on the social innovation agenda has changed my vision on the relationship between public institutions and citizens. We can’t go back anymore’.
Now the baton passes to the new government but the tide has turned. Bravo Francesco!
