The Marketplace of Reggio Emilia

A solution by euforia submitted to Welcome to Reggio Emilia

The Marketplace is a platform to boost social innovation and entrepreneurship. It’s a european-wide online platform (with basecamp in Switzerland) connecting offline communities such as in Reggio Emilia to engage and empower talents and resources from the social innovation ecosystem. It also provides trainings, educational offers and access to mentors and coaches.

(Pitched: 15/07/2018)

One Page Summary

Through our trainings, events and everyday interactions with Youth and organizations from different sectors, we see countless individuals striving to make a positive impact in the world around them, but often lacking a community of peers to get the support (expertise, inspiration, motivation…) and resources needed to bring their initiatives to life. We also acknowledge the world of work changing at a staggering pace. Every 10 years the labour force is strengthened by a new generation with new needs, desires and capabilities. The direction is clear. We are moving towards a labour market where stable employment is losing ground, where people feel the need to belong to a community and contribute to it in meaningful ways, where collective intelligence is the only way to solve the complex problems that our world is facing. In our understanding, those are precisely the challenges that Messina is dealing with.

The Marketplace is our solution to provide blossoming talents of all ages and sectors with a 360° system that will give them wings, i.e. peer support, skills, mindset to unleash their full potential, through work opportunities (both paid and voluntary) and authentic caring connections amongst peers in the field of social innovation and sustainability. We believe that not only individuals, but also organisations will benefit from this community by finding the right candidates to foment innovations into their organisations.

The Marketplace is built around two complementary parts:

An online platform connecting local talents to a European circle of similar minds to boost innovative projects and activities, and to engage partner organizations and local communities. On this platform it is possible to present an initiative (to look for resources, people, funds or expertise). It is also possible to sign up to an initiative (being it paid by a company or voluntarily). The online platform will also provide an extensive offer of trainings and access to a pool of experts willing to give their time in order for the initiatives to thrive.

An offline platform, that is the heart of the Marketplace, creating a strong local support community which holds people in place and can grow into an attractive location for young people everywhere to start collaborative projects and retain them in Reggio Emilia as concrete local employment flourishes and grounds for innovation become more fertile. Community events are organized to share, exchange, develop new initiatives and help each other solve challenges. On-site trainings are taking place to empower people to co-create new ways of learning, working and innovating that are adapted to 21st century societal challenges. These events are meant to create the sense of belonging that is lacking in our individualistic society, and enabling people to support and be supported, to inspire and be inspired, and to communicate and inspire others to join. Examples from euforia are Share and Grow Nights and imp!act which could be effectively leveraged in Reggio Emilia.

In our experience, e.g working with local actors such as impact hubs, we see great synergies in the collaboration with local stakeholders (universities, companies, etc..) to host local gatherings and also long-term partnerships for knowledge sharing, talents exchanges, etc..

euforia has been running a first test version of the Marketplace since the summer of 2017 as a proof of concept. A dozen of projects have found support amongst 30+ contributors and the feedbacks are overwhelmingly positive. A major multi-donors project will soon be launched to make the Marketplace into its full-fledged online version. But the main strength of the Marketplace lays in the local rooting of its communities, this is why we see tremendous potential to implement it in many locations in parallel. The Marketplace of Reggio Emilia would benefit from the global platform and in turn it would contribute to the success of its international members.