Carlyn, a design research graduate from Harvard University Graduate School of Design, has been working on social and behavioral change projects in Kenya for the past few years. As a law student at the University of Bristol, Oliver has founded a legal tech startup to help SMEs navigate their legal commitments. When he’s not making films, Alexander, a management engineering student at Torino Politecnico, works on student consulting projects as the head of marketing for his campus’s Junior Enterprise. Throughout her life, Dawn, a communications and information student at Nanyang Technological University, has used her art as a means to enact meaningful change in the lives of others.

These are just a few participants who will be joining us this summer for the three summer innovation programs offered by Italia Innovation and, for the first time, California Innovation. After closing the applications on April 15, we are finalizing the configuration of the 2019 summer classes of multidisciplinary students who share the same passion to create positive change in the world.

More than 750 students and young professionals from all over the world demonstrated interest in the 2019 edition that offers two thematic programs in Verona, Italy and one in San Francisco, California. The candidates come from the most selective international universities like Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, UC Berkeley, MIT, Parsons School of Design, Nanyang Technological University, Stellenbosch University, University of Toronto, Sciences Po, Bocconi, University of Technology Sydney, and King’s College.

Beyond the higher number of applications, this year’s great achievement was the quality of candidates we’ve received. Uniting the interest of these talents is on one hand the curiosity to see up close an industrial ecosystem characterized by the values of elegance, simplicity, and functionality - fundamental values and drivers of all research projects undertaken by Italia and California Innovation, and on the other hand the desire to influence with their own values the contexts that will host them for three weeks.

The objective of the courses is to systematize the energy, creativity, and skills of these young talents through the experience of relevant international thought leaders. In fact, we believe that the meeting and confrontation of very different academic, professional, and personal backgrounds is what allows us to generate an innovative impact and added value.