The Italian Social App Competition began
The winning social entrepreneurs will receive all the support they need to launch a real startup project
The Italian Social App Competition addressing young people with innovative ideas, is getting started. The initiative is promoted by " Italian Business&Investment Initiative Youth", the "young division" of "Italian Business&Investment Initiative" founded by Fernando Napolitano.
This is an independent organization aimed at creating and increasing business between Italy's entrepreneurs and top US venture capitalists, (mainly in New York and San Francisco.)
The event, which will give a chance to young people to implement their own App, is also supported by other partners: Thinking Technologies, Mind The Bridge ( one of the most active talent scout), Fulbright Best, Changemakers for Expo 2015, ItaliaCamp and Microsoft BizSpark.
The perfect mechanism to spot the next Italian social entrepreneur is in place; next move is to Italian youth.
The project is clear: promoting the role of the Social Entrepreneur in Italy by spotting a brilliant idea and a great team to turn them into a real app and a new Venture.
In more detail, Social App Italia is the first Italian "call for ideas" for apps with a tangible impact on society. The mechanism is fairly straightforward: you have an idea for a social app, you post the business plan online, the best teams present a pitch and the winner sees its idea turned into a real app by a task force of professional developers.
There is a particular interest in those young entrepreneurs focused on creating social and economic value sustainable over time.
The competition started today and will end on May 30 with the presentation of the five finalist projects.
The evaluation committee will be composed of professors, venture capitalists, journalists, managers and startup and entrepreneurship experts. Among them: high-profile actors in the Italian entrepreneurship and innovation scene , such as Alberto Onetti (Mind the Bridge founder), Gianluca Dettori (DPixel founder), Mario Fontana (Microsoft BizSpark) and Davide Agazzi (Change Makers for EXPO 2015) just to name a few.
The above mentioned committee will select all projects, and then the "call for ideas" winners will be proclaimed.
The winning social entrepreneurs will receive all the support they need to launch a real startup project : ? 50,000 in services from Windows Azure, promotion on Microsoft channels and the managerial support of "Italian Business and Investment Initiative Youth".
In addition, Mind the Bridge will award the leader of the winning team with a scholarship for its Startup School., which includes a three-week program in San Francisco providing theoretical and practical learning on what it's like to be a Silicon Valley startup and gives the winner the chance to further develop the new venture.
The "call for ideas" contest is open to individuals, teams or organizations made up of people under 35, with high social impact innovative ideas.
