One Page Summary

Synapses has the ambition to solve the two problems advanced by this challenge. The former is about the brain drain from the territory of Messina: people with all kinds of expertise and skillsets, from the most generic to the most specialized, decide on a daily basis to leave our country to study or find a new job in another part of Italy and Europe. The latter is related to the local entrepreneurial sector where there is small chances to innovate and little understanding of the opportunities given by digitalization. This scenario, obviously, keeps facing problem in getting out of the economic crisis and encounters difficulties in engaging the new generations. 

Synapses will be modulated in different phases:

1. mapping local companies grouped by field, scope of action and turnover;
2. recognition of the needs and problems related to digitalization and obstacles to hiring new employees;
3. select one type (field) of companies that can have more benefits in hiring neets with digital skills;
4. meet companies included in this list to show them the importance and good results that can be reached by using digital means;
5. creation of a series of meetings (1/2 per month) involving neet people (dissemination and discovery);
6. start a intensive and fast course involving most interested and active youngsters;
7. match trained partecipants with - already mapped and interested - local companies;
8. start a new cycle with a different type of companies.

This path allows us to have the certainty that the young person will commit to a suitable job and avoid the company in providing great effort usually required for the initial shadowing. In case that, after the first cycle, we do not find neets that match the expectations of the companies, a new cycle of up to three times will be set up.

Once the process has started, companies that have benefited from the young worker can decide to donate and support the project to finance the new cycle, and then benefit of the process again in future.

Synapses exploits the potential of the network currently present within Innesta. Key elements of our solution are the companies that in recent years the incubator has met and contacted.

Without them, it would be impossible to know their needs and give them adequate answers. Of course, our investigation would extend to all companies placed in Messina and its province: we will address manly to the ones do not have the strength to fully exploit the potential of digital innovation. A valid help will certainly also be provided by the associations that promote entrepreneurial culture, which have a consolidated network and know the potential of the people who live here. Through our network in Messina we plan to involve also the local University,  by engaging and involving the most promising students. 

There have already been attempts by local entities to bring together companies and neet people but such project, unfortunately, produced few results. The reason was to be found in the scarcity of views that led companies to take advantage of free workers: it has also happened that workers were promised tasks that was changed during the collaboration.

Furthermore the courses were assigned to teachers who were not able to capture the enthusiasm of young people, to involve them and provide them with the most appropriate skills for the purpose.

The series of events described in point 3 will involve local and international mentors: the aim will be to provide the right enthusiasm and skills to those who decide to attend the meetings. The meetings will all be free.

We are aware of the severity of the commitment and for this reason we will try to monitor the work of the chosen worker in the company, making sure what they do will correspond to the promises given at the beginning of the path. We will carry out periodic checks and tests that measure the degree of involvement of one and the other.
The workers will be organized according to their worth and based on the skills shown: this will allow us to identify the best people for each theme identified. In this process, the opinion of who manages Innesta will be useful to identify the best personalities and the most adequate for our purposes. The selection will take place in close collaboration with the Incubator, which will provide us with the right ideas for the necessary needs. In the event that the process is not successful, we are ready to reiterate it for at least three times, until we have an adequate response to expectations. Synapses is strongly local-oriented and will therefore try to get as much as possible to better interpret the needs of the territory. Moreover, this first cycle represents the start of the whole process which, subsequently, can be kept up thanks to the profits that companies will enjoy thanks to the new elements included in the work context.