The innovative social startup, part of Torino Social Impact network, Atelier Riforma, has been selected as a semi-finalist among 177 others who have applied for the “Green Alley Award”, the most prestigious European prize for the circular economy.

To decree the 6 startups that will access the final there will be a public vote, active until February 15th.

For those unfamiliar with this project, it is an idea of ​​two young women, Elena Ferrero and Sara Secondo, who set themselves the goal of reducing the enormous environmental impact of the fashion industry through the circular economy.

The two young women started in 2019 by collecting used clothes and entrusting them to a network of tailors to remove the defects and make them wearable again. Atelier Riforma then officially became an innovative startup with a social vocation in 2020. Elena and Sara did not let themselves be discouraged by the complicated period of the pandemic: day after day they created a network of more than 25 tailoring professionals throughout Italy, including several social tailoring workshops, which promote the job inclusion of disadvantaged people such as migrants, ex-prisoners and women victims of violence.

They are now working on a system that allows this circular model to be applied on a larger scale: they have therefore just started the development of the first Artificial Intelligence technology for the cataloging and sorting of textile waste. This technology project has been called “Re4Circular” and that’s exactly what they nominated for the Green Alley Award. The objective of this machinery will be to direct as many used garments as possible towards sustainable uses, such as reuse, recycling and upcycling. And avoid them ending up in landfills!

By 2025, separate collection of textile waste will be mandatory throughout the EU, and this technology could make Italy a pioneer in the upcoming regulatory change in the sector. Their dream? Making sure that no clothing, after being used, is transformed into waste, but on the contrary is continuously recovered, transformed and put back into circulation, creating economic value and new jobs.

If you want to give these two young women one more chance, you can vote Atelier Riforma at this link.

Who knows if this year a TSI startup could win the prize!

If you are struck by a painting in a restaurant, you can pay for it and take it away with you. In Turin you can with Artàporter: the first platform that supports the development of emerging art to make it accessible to all, rethinking its “common places”.

The idea starts from the need to “rethink the commonplaces of art“, that is the ability of cities to create urban galleries with new tourist itineraries related to art. Not only public spaces but also private spaces, starting from the network of merchants who love art and want to make available their walls for the exhibition of works.

Artàporter was born as a benefit company to increase the accessibility of the world of art in different spaces, to make it as usable as possible and, why not, even buy it in a local, and collectible by all art lovers.

A “phygital” project that allows not only the online matching between artists and shopkeepers but also the birth of capillary touchpoints (host) through which to convey the widespread art with innovative “Artàporter District” or “art districts”, which recall the great European capitals of Berlin or London, creating new artistic spaces mapped throughout the city. The goal is to bring beauty everywhere, with the idea of being able to rediscover a city under the sign of art.

There are already 15 participating venues in Turin that display the Artàporter logo on the outside of their premises. A real “neighborhood proximity of art” is starting, with an increasingly wide and widespread network of venues involved, to increase the number of streets and stores, not only in the historic center but also in the suburbs and the belt.

In these days the first matching between artists and venues has started, where to admire the first works among the streets and roads of Turin. Just frame with your smartphone the QR code near the work to buy it and take it away with you immediately.

Applications for artists and shopkeepers are also open on www.artapoter.it.

The system, which started in Turin, in the coming months will see the development in other Italian cities and even abroad.

ROAD TO Eurovision Song Contest 2022, the concerts at Googreen Market in the run-up to Eurovision next May.

In continuity with the Tanto di Cappello project and the development of the platform Arthecity Network, musicians, street artists and producers of the territory united together for a common urban regeneration action aimed at snatching Giardini Sambuy from their abandonment.

Active since December 2021, the ROAD TO will be the musical reverberation in countdown to the big music festival and will end on May 8 with the final concert at Giardini Sambuy.

DATES:

• FEBRUARY 13
• 13 MARCH
• 10TH APRIL
• MAY 8TH

Consult the program

Saturday, January 29 Where Learning Happens. Education as an urban policy makes a stop in Turin for a new presentation meeting in the spaces of Via Baltea 3.

The publication collects the perspectives and experiences – Italian and international – emerged during the local conversations on the link between education and cities organized between April and May 2021 by Avanzi as a contribution to the New European Bauhaus initiative.

Promoted by the European Commission, the New European Bauhaus (NEB) was created with the aim of stimulating debate and social imagination around the design and construction of a sustainable and inclusive future.
To respond to this challenge and contribute to the public debate launched by the NEB, Avanzi wanted to stimulate a reflection on the role of the city as a “learning community” that cultivates the skills of its inhabitants and sets up spaces to support them.

The presentation in the spaces of Via Baltea 3, the community hub of Barriera di Milano, a former printing house transformed into a space for the community, intends to continue this reflection, starting from a suggestion: the construction of “educating communities” could be the challenge on which to set a new season of policies for the suburbs.

Spaces that welcome and stimulate social energies (like via Baltea 3) can be crucial resources to support innovation and social learning. Turin, which is the Italian city with the most consolidated tradition of intervention in the suburbs, how does it interpret this new phase and how could it orient its policies to support it?

Free copies of the publication will be available for meeting attendees.

Super Green Pass holders will be allowed to attend the event after registering on Eventbrite.

“Italia Inclusiva” is a project of the Directorate-General for the Promotion of the Country System that aims to enhance the Italian third sector abroad, through the creation of video-photographic projects that highlight the activities of six Italian non-profit associations.

The Third Sector in Italy is a dynamic and extremely varied reality, with hundreds of thousands of organizations active in various fields. It was created to serve the community and, at the same time, it creates communities and relationships, producing an economic value far greater than what is quantified.

It is a very active laboratory of entrepreneurship and innovation and contributes to promoting culture and making it accessible. In turn, the Italian Third Sector generates a culture of responsibility, cooperation and care for people, spaces and cities. It is therefore important to start associating Made in Italy also with the excellence that our country can boast in the social sphere, which has a crucial role in the sustainable development of the country and in the inclusion of its most fragile subjects.

The project aims to communicate abroad the contribution of the third sector and to try to return its variety, through the selection of six macro-areas of intervention, which recall the Goals for Sustainable Development of the UN Agenda 2030: legality, women’s empowerment, urban regeneration, social integration, sports, social entrepreneurship.

For the promotion and enhancement of this important socio-economic heritage will be made of video-photographic projects that tell the activities of the associations identified active in the areas listed above, in continuity with the established tradition of Italian photography in the reading of places and society.

The public notice “Italia Inclusiva” is addressed to emerging or mid-career photographers/video makers or collectives and will remain open until February 4, 2022.

The six selected artists will be able to develop their video-photographic project by observing over the course of a few months the work and history of the associations. The photographic projects will then be valorized through the realization of six books and six exhibitions destined to be diffused in the diplomatic-consular network and in the Italian Institutes of Culture.

Since 1990 leader in the world of creative eyewear design VANNI takes on the form of a “Società Benefit” (Benefit Corporation), a corporate typology (introduced in Italy by law) that applies to the companies that pursue objectives of common good- beyond those of profit- in their corporate purpose.

“For us, the pandemic has constituted a moment to redesign and rethink” states the president of VANNI, Giovanni Vitaloni. “From here came the urgency to bring about, through the activities of the company, an improvement in both the social and environmental impact we produce. It is not a surface-level makeover, but rather an undertaking of substantial responsibility, to make it measurable and visible.

“AT VANNI We Care” is a new way of seeing our company, and how we operate” continues Alessandra Girardi, co-owner of VANNI: “being sustainable today for us means managing, with attention and care, the effects of our activities: engaging for fair working conditions that place people at the center; minimising the environmental impact of the glasses we produce, starting from design; encouraging the spread of positive and responsible practices to the Italian eyewear sector as a whole, a pride of made in Italy.

NextItaly is the new acceleration program promoted by SocialFare | Center for Social Innovation in collaboration with VVA aimed at supporting Third Sector Organizations in accessing European funds included in the 2021-27 programming.

NextItaly is a new model of intervention that integrates technical expertise of europlanning and tools of Social Innovation, in line with the approach required by the European Union.

The proposal is a high-level capacity building program that follows the Third Sector entities starting from the acquisition of basic know-how – for those who do not have previous experience – and continuing with differentiated paths that offer the support of our experts in the various stages of design, search for strategic partners and writing, until the presentation of the application to the major EU calls.

The offer is divided into 2 programs, Boost!1 and Boost!2:

• NextItaly Boost!1 is a training course aimed at Third Sector organizations that have not yet gained consolidated experience in the field of europlanning. Participation is also open to trade associations and professionals. The course includes 8 days of training (42h of theoretical and practical sessions + 6h of follow-up workshop) to learn about the opportunities offered to the Third Sector by EU policies and acquire the basic know-how to access European funding
• NextItaly Boost!2 is the acceleration program that supports Third Sector organizations by following them step-by-step in all phases of planning, research for strategic partners, writing and applying to European calls for proposals.

The program is developed in different accompaniment paths according to the specific calls of the European Union, ensuring highly qualified and personalized support from SocialFare and VVA experts.

Info and registration to the programs in departure:
https://socialfare.org/nextitaly-boost/ 

Mariangela Romanazzi
mariangela.romanazzi@socialfare.org 

 

We hear a lot about artificial intelligence applied for productive purposes, but what contribution can this technology bring to the social economy?

In 2020, an open group of engineers, data analysts and domain experts from around the world kicked off a project that aims to turn AI into a tool to reduce the complexity of predictive calculations on the energy sector by facilitating their interpretation.

Massimiliano Vurro, Co-Founder of Seetalabs, explains why this fits well into the Torino Social Impact ecosystem.

Interview by Francesco Antonioli.

Watch previous episodes here.

Environmental and social sustainability are both issues that must be addressed with great professionalism.

Through consulting, accompaniment, and teamwork, TSI partner Link4Good Benefit Corporation helps profit and nonprofit organizations to increase their skills in this sense.

An ambitious name and objective indeed, as Caterina Soldi, Co-founder of Link4Good, tells us.

Interview by Francesco Antonioli.