The Apple Academy in Naples celebrates its 10th anniversary: ‘A hub for entrepreneurship’
Mayor Manfredi, former vice-chancellor of Federico II: the neighbourhood has regained its dignity and IT jobs are on the rise in Campania
“It feels like only yesterday that I was here with the Apple representatives. We were near the industrial ruins and someone’s face looked just like Munch’s ‘The Scream’. Then we took them onto the campus and they changed their minds,” recalls Giorgio Ventre, scientific director of the Apple Developer Academy, which today celebrated its 10th anniversary at its premises within the Federico II University campus in San Giovanni a Teduccio. We are in the former Cirio industrial area, on the eastern outskirts of the city.
Over the past ten years, Ventre pointed out, ‘so many incredible things have happened’. Over 3,000 students from Italia and around 80 countries have taken part in the Academy’s programmes, run in collaboration with the University. The core programme lasts nine months, with 300 students per year; it is free of charge and provides skills in coding, design, marketing, project management and artificial intelligence. There are also shorter programmes on offer, as well as a second year for a select group of students who complete the first year.
“We wanted to transform life in this neighbourhood and change the world’s perception of a city with 2,500 years of history,” continues Ventre. Citing figures from the Bank of Italia, Ventre pointed out that employment in the IT sector in Campania has grown by 50 per cent, with thousands of new skilled jobs created in the region.
The Vice-Chancellor of Federico II, Matteo Lorito, emphasised: ‘Here, students learn by doing. They work on real-world projects, develop apps and are directly responsible for the results they produce.’ This is a model of local development that the university aims to ‘replicate in other areas of the city as well, from Scampia to Caivano’.
For Apple, the choice of Naples as the location for its first European Academy was no coincidence. “We wanted to bring the programme to a place where it could have a significant impact not only on the lives of individual students, but also on the fabric of a community,” explained Alisha Johnson Wilder, Apple’s Senior Director for Global Community Impact.
