It’s difficult to describe what we have gone through all together in Naples for the last 4 days. For sure the back stage was a mess but every participant congratulated for the achievements. All the delegates I spoke to were grateful for the inputs or contacts got at our events.
We had up to 300 delegates from 14 countries including Saudi Arabia, and the most powerful people in town – even the chief of the army who complained for having been invited at the last minute. He commented: ‘I could not miss this event’
I assume the Camorra had its representatives as well 🙂
Our main partner Unicredit is so enthusiastic about our partnership that I’m travelling to Milan for a meeting with the foundation board. They are already ready to partner for a new and even more ambitious competition.
Marco did an amazing job engaging all the local partners and keeping all threads together.
However, this is just the beginning as we have to help the 7 winners transforming their ideas in business plans working with the local hosts by the end of the year. Only the projects deemed sustainable and effective will receive the full budget for implementation.
The European Commission has already committed funding for a publication on the project to disseminate the results, and we want to undertake an evaluation of both process and results by the end of next year.
Prof David Lane has even proposed to use this project to experiment a new impact measurement methods.
It seems that other initiatives will spin-off independently from the project’s out comes: – Unicredit wants to fund a local hub for social innovation – The city council is interested in partnering with the Bilbao social innovation park – Academics of the Bocconi University want to link to Karl and our project on social investments in Europe – Our new member Bohdan – partner in UNDEF project – might develop a partnership with Unicredit in Ukraine – Martin, CEO of the European Volunteering Centre, will partner with Mohammed to establish a volunteering centre in Jeddah
What else… I’m exhausted but happy. A noise clap to all of us.
