ABOUT ME
My name's Andrea, and i'm a 21 years old guy from the province of Varese, Italy (very near to Milan). Before I start telling what i'm doing now, I think it's important to understand where I come from. As you can see, english is not my first language - and i’m way better speaking then writing it - so please be patient with any mistakes you might find. Thank you.My parents where very poor and migrated to northern Italy from Caserta, near Naples, in the seventies. When they moved, they were almost my age now (!), and were searching for jobs, hope, and a good place to raise their children, giving them the opportunities they didn’t had.
This isn’t new for anyone who knows Italy. My story is nothing “new”. But since I was a child, I always felt like a son of two worlds: the North, where I grown up and was educated, and the South, where the rest of my family, my traditions and “aesthetics” are from. And because of that, I’ve always felt proudly italian, and proudly european.
Feeling in debt with all the occasions that life, family and friends gave me, I decided to try giving back something to society.
WHAT I’M GIVING BACK
I’ve always heard about this difference between “digital natives” and “digital adopters”. From many columnists point of view, being young and born in a PC (or post-PC, as Steve would say) means that you have most of the instruments needed to use technology. That’s true, i won’t argue about it.
But what about using technology in a responsible way? What about knowing what you’re doing when you’re sharing your personal informations online, checking for privacy controls on social networks? What about knowing what is “net neutrality”, or what the term “smart city” means?
All those things are part - or are becoming part - of our lives everyday. For me it’s pretty easy to answer, but i’m a geek so I don’t count. What about all those high school students who don’t know anything about those themes? Should they be left in darkness while others take decisions, and actions? I don’t think that’s fair.
The Green Geek School Education (acronym for “GSE”) is an educational project that targets students from high schools and college. I’ve started it inside the no-profit association Green Geek, based in Milan.
Its main goal is to provide students with the basics for understanding, managing new technologies and spreading the “culture of innovation”. It’s structured a non-linear and multi-disciplinary way, and conducted by exhibiting concrete examples of realities (like start-ups and institutions) who took really seriously the challenge for the future. It features dialectic heavily based on motivation and enhancement of groups and individuals.
The project also hosts the contribution of the European Parliament VP, Gianni Pittella:
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