“True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own”. These words from writer Nikos Kazantzakis resonate deeply with me and inspire my everyday effort toward nurturing students’ confidence in themselves and awakening their joy in creative expression.
Over the years I have translated this principle into practice through many original initiatives aimed at empowering students in their learning journey. For instance, I designed from scratch the Entrepreneurship concentration of the University of Bologna MSc in Management, now one of the most successful and most coveted MSc in Italy.
In collaboration with MIT Sloan and HEC, I co-founded the Medici Summer School in Management Studies, one of the world’s leading doctoral training initiatives in Management – aimed at contributing to the development of exemplary scholarly-based practices in the management of organizations. After 13 years since its launch, we have 300 Medici alumni scattered throughout the world.
I founded UNIBO LaunchPad (subsequently named “ReActor”), the first Italian entrepreneurial education programme targeting young scientists with ideas rooted in their research. The initiative had vast resonance becoming the country’s premier science-based entrepreneurship education platform.
I designed from scratch and led for several years the Green Energy and Sustainable Business MBA of Bologna Business School, now one of the flagship streams of the School’s Global MBA Programme of the School. Seeing my students become positive change agents is an endless source of joy.