Rome becomes the capital of youth entrepreneurship

School and work, for years parallel worlds, today dialogue more and more. This is also thanks to the commitment of Junior Achievement Italia, which tomorrow in Rome inaugurates the two-day Entrepreneurship Championships. The competition, hosted at Palazzo Valentini and at the Department of Architecture of the Roma Tre University, represents the final stage of a path, first at a territorial level and then at a national level, which will decree the best Italian student mini-enterprise to be included in the National Register of Excellence. But the deeper meaning of this path emerges in the stories of those who have passed through it: professionals who offer their skills and students who have found a direction from a school experience.

This is the case of Janira Grillotti, 25, from Rieti. 'When I was 17, I thought I would study chemistry and pharmaceutical technology,' she recounts. Then an encounter with a programme of Junior Achievement Italia changed her path. Today she works as a project manager in the cultural and educational field. "Thanks to JA, I was able to discover sides of me that I didn't know yet". Along the way, together with his classmates, he devised a saucer capable of watering plants remotely.

Ilva Diaco, 39, originally from Bergamo and living in Luxembourg for many years, also found her way after a stint with JA. Today she is managing director of Intreal, a company that administers investment funds in the real estate sector. For her too, the turning point came at the age of 17. "It was the first real opportunity to confront myself with the world of work," she says. With her classmates she had developed a key ring with a tracker. The project took her all the way to Junior Achievement Italia's national competitions. 'We had to present our start-up at the Italian Stock Exchange and I was on stage'. She was noticed by Citigroup recruiters, who offered her a summer internship. "For me it was the real turning point. There I fell in love with the world of finance'. From that experience also came her choice of university path: to study finance, trading and investment banking. "If I am doing this job today, it is also thanks to JA".

Arbjon Sina, 29, from the province of Pisa, says he was 'forged' by the Junior Achievement programme in which he participated in the fourth grade. Today, he is the sales manager of a company specialising in the production of machinery, a position that leads him to spend most of his time abroad. "JA unlocked me and made me realise that perseverance is key," he says.

Among those who have chosen to make their know-how available is Antonio Domenico Ialeggio, 43, from Benevento. An entrepreneur in the lighting sector, he started as a volunteer in Junior Achievement Italia's programmes in 2012 and has not stopped since. Today, in addition to his entrepreneurial activities, he leads a holding company that invests in start-ups, including those born in the JA pathways. These also include Farm Animal Trade, a marketplace for farm animals, developed from a project he followed as a coach. "It's not true that young people don't want to do anything. They need an enabler, a person who believes in them and pushes them to realise their ideas, which are often very innovative,' says Antonio.