Four major resources for new European young entrepreneurs

Exclusively written for the Sting by Davide Giordano, President of Junior Enterprise Torino Politecnico (J.E.To.P), member of JADE. One year ago I was organizing with my Junior Enterprise our first seminar on the digital revolution, a full immersion of three hours with a social media specialist, Umberto Macchi, free for all students inside our University. Among the many things that I’ve learned one particularly caught my attention: “the jobs of the future are those that probably your mother won’t understand; an example? Social Media Manager, or Digital Strategist etc.” This quote left surprised me as well as many other students in the room because social media are not usually a teaching argument. So, what’s the conclusion? Most of the things we’re learning are already old, then if you wish to be an entrepreneur in the digital era be aware of its potential and start building your knowledge: here are four resources that you need to know and might become your best allies in your road to entrepreneurship. Social Media Millennials are aware of social media, they use them every day for getting in touch with friends, relatives and sharing moments of our lives. But most of them don’t master the tools and don’t know their potential. The battleground for finding new clients is moving from radio & TV advertising to social media. Big companies relay always more often on startups to find a partner for promoting and viralizing their content, like Dreamset, probably one of the best startup in Italy for viral marketing. Digital fabrication and Industry 4.0 Not everyone might be familiar with these terms, but after 3D printing the digital fabrication will revolutionize many processes, including crafting and fabrication of wood, plastic, metal, furniture and even more. Someone is already exploring this approach, combing great design with manufacturing talent, like the opendesk team in London.

Mobile technologies, APIs and cloud power

APIs or application programming interfaces are the door to new potential applications in our smartphones, they are software layers that allow us to easily access to new functionalities like fingerprint authentication, voice recognition, beacon interaction and plenty more. APIs do not only reside in our phone, most of them live on the cloud giving us access to secure data storage, big data process, payment systems. Technical innovations often hide a huge potential, so why not trying to understand them more in detail? Google Developer Groups are organizing around the world Android StudyJams, free basic courses on Android development. Understanding the possibilities of new technologies is the key for creating new services, like the Quibee team has done with Apple’s iBeacon technology.

Local market and digital single market

Each one of us knows the qualities of its local market, today thanks to the digital single market initiatives by EU starting a business locally and making it cross border only requires a good idea and an excellent product. A good example is Tannico, a very successful startup specialized in wine selling, great wine selection and competitive prices are changing the wine industry, and the same paradigm can find application in many different areas. About the author I think as an Engineer, I operate as an Entrepreneur. In January 2015 I’ve become President at J.E.To.P. – Junior Enterprise Torino Politecnico. I’ve managed a Junior Enterprise, an association composed by students, but structured exactly like an enterprise, with 61 students working on different projects, Event creation & organization, Mobile & Website development, Visual Design, Social Media Planning & Strategy. Together we created WTT: Wearable Tech Torino, the first exhibition in Italy on the wearable technologies. Today I’m Senior Advisor for J.E.To.P. and Master student in Computer Science at Politecnico di Torino.