Uljan Sharka: from Albania to Silicon Valley to create iGenius, the first Italian artificial intelligence unicorn

"Programming teaches you how to think, how to start from scratch from a blank sheet of paper and build something, even a life path". Uljan Sharka, born in 1992, espouses one of Steve Jobs' maxims, 'everyone must learn to programme', and indeed in his case coding has redesigned his existence. Born in Albania and arrived in Italy at the age of 16, he owes his education to his passion for IT and his self-taught determination.

Meeting the Apple reality in Italy and then having the opportunity to go to Silicon Valley from 2012 to 2015 was the turning point. "In the US, I was struck by the ability to succeed in realising things that seemed impossible to me, but I felt that that kind of culture did not belong to me because technology is seen as an end and not a means'. Sharka thus chose to return to Italy to make his dream of creating technology a reality. Starting with the search for funds with some business angels, who financed the start-up phase, the entrepreneur has realised year after year the dimensional growth of iGenius, going through a series of funding rounds that have allowed him to raise just over 40 million euros so far. 'The hardest part has been to position Italian-made technology abroad,' he now recounts. It was a challenge that required a practical demonstration of being able to make a difference even in a field not traditionally associated with our country.

Also guiding him is the ideal of wanting to make technology more democratic, to 'design a more inclusive future'. Central to this transformative transition is the fact that this new technology is not centralised in the hands of a few companies and a few suppliers, because 'control of information is absolute power', explains Sharka. This is why he is in favour of the AI Act, because 'the human rights acquired so far are non-negotiable and we need to start with the rights to make this technology safe in the interest of humanity and not in the interest of individual people's profits. Regulation is one of Europe's strengths and one of its peculiarities. Europe's strategy in the development ofartificial intelligence must be decoupled from the idea of following the Silicon Valley model, thanks also to clear rules, which are an advantage for European industry, because regulatory certainty will attract investment and foster a business-developer ecosystem at the forefront of ethical AI.