SI – Scuola Impresa Famiglia
The SI – Scuola Impresa Famiglia (‘YES – School Business Family’) project began in 2018 as a strategic action in the field of school innovation, aimed at facilitating and enhancing the transition of students at technical institutes into the technological sector of the working world, now characterised by what has become known as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.
By mapping the needs of local areas and schools, Fondazione Cariplo takes concrete action to update school laboratory equipment and supports specific technical training for teaching staff, to make the educational offering more consistent and up to date with the needs of manufacturing companies and the system of professions.
To date, the SI Project has involved 76 state and private secondary schools in the technological sector, each with at least one educational pathway covered by the Foundation’s areas for action:
- mechanics, mechatronics and energy
- electronics and electrical engineering
- information technology and telecommunications.
Fondazione Cariplo’s total investment of €1.5 million has made it possible to donate to schools over 60 cutting-edge technological solutions and 5,000 hours of training for teaching staff, thanks to the engagement and participation in the project of 36 leading companies in the 4.0 sector, the technological heart of the initiative.
Based on the experience that the students have gained in the new updated laboratories and to stimulate the propensity for continuous innovation, in May 2019 a competition was launched among the schools participating in the SI project for the creation of functional prototypes: the “SI_Fabbrica” competition gave students the opportunity to take part in a further innovative training experience, a hallmark of the entire SI project initiative.
The extension in 2020 of the SI Project to institutes of higher education that offer educational pathways in “agriculture, agri-food and agro-industry” stems from an analysis of the national context in Italy, showing that Industry 4.0 has also pervaded this sector. With this recent development in the project, we intend to encourage an even broader audience of institutions, with a view to new training needs that will need to enter into dialogue with the strategic technological areas for the innovation and competitiveness of the local areas in which we operate.