Made in Confinement
An unprecedented, unexpected infectious disease emergency has taken over the world. In Italy, the scale of the challenge is enormous, and the government has decided to shut down non-essential services and ban public and private gatherings, hoping to halt the rapid spread of disease. SINGA Italy, in compliance with health directives, halted all activities that involved people meeting together.
However, SINGA is an organization predicated on co-creation, on meeting and mixing people from all across the world, an attitude clearly at odds with the current situation. Here in Italy, we were ready to launch our incubator with 29 highly skilled and motivated aspiring entrepreneurs and had planned networking events, workshops, design sprints, and much more.
Fortunately, we already knew where we could turn to for advice and inspiration, with only a few days to re-invent our whole program! Refugee and migrant entrepreneurs have resilience and creativity built-in through their life experiences, and re-invention in adversity is nothing but a daily task for many.
So we jumped into action, sought advice and most importantly started to put into action what the entrepreneurs we work with have always taught us, that every challenge is a chance to re-invent what you do for the better.
So now our incubator has moved online! We have divided up workshops in bit size online lessons spread out throughout the week, to avoid people spending too much time in front of screens. We have created ways to facilitate networking online and do ice-breakers via webcam, and can’t wait to update you all on how the Awesome entrepreneurs of the 2020 cohort are changing the world with their companies!
Final note: While we have been able to adapt and overcome, our thoughts go out to all that are being challenged by this current crisis, especially groups in conditions of economic, health and social fragility. We encourage all to follow our government’s directive and if you feel SINGA might have a solution for you, please do reach out.
Stefano Rovelli, cofounder of Singa Italia
