TO San Siro, on the outskirts of Milan, a group of motivated and enthusiastic young people founded the Tech7 association to “develop the entrepreneurial skills of boys and girls”, as Omar Garzillo, 29, passionate about technology and innovation, says. He starts with a coding course from which job opportunities and social redemption will arise in a neighborhood that is “the youngest in the city but also the least frequented by the Milanese”. The goal is to help transform a problematic suburb, where discomfort is evident, and to create a virtuous circuit that brings the different souls of the neighborhood closer, developing a sense of community. Everything is ready, funding is lacking: this is why a campaign of crowfunding.
The OFF Campus space of the Politecnico di Milano in the popular San Siro district. OFF Campus will host Tech7 coding courses.
An ambitious goal? In reality, the reference model started from an even more problematic situation, in the ghetto district of Molenbeek, in Brussels, the one where the Bataclan terrorists grew up. It was there a few years ago that the project was born MolenGeek, a digital hub that offers training, coworking spaces, events. “They started in 2017 with a coding course for a dozen guys, who all got jobs. The following year there were already 120, because those who had followed the course did the training for others », continues Omar, who is carrying out the initiative with Giovanni Agugini and Davide Cognigni. Now among Molengeek’s partners there are Google, Meta, Pwc, Microsoft, who have an interest in “catching” the most competent young people and inserting them. In Italy Molengeek already has a partnership with a project in Padua, but Tech7 will soon join.
The coding course in San Siro, on the outskirts of Milan, will last 160 hours
Meanwhile, the first step is the coding course, of course free. “We already have spaces,” says Alessandro Corti, councilor of the 7th Municipality of Milan, an expert in migration processes and a volunteer at Tech7. «The Politecnico di Milano has offered us its space OFF Campus in San Siro to begin with, and the pro-rector Donatella Sciuto assured us that two researchers will study the social impact of the initiative. In addition, we also had the availability of the Fenun cultural space in viale Mar Jonio. We also have students: Prof. Infante, IT coordinator at the Galilei Higher Institute will help us find the most interested boys and girls“.
The course will be intensive: 160 hours in all, two a day from Monday to Friday. Normally it costs a few thousand euros, for the children of the quadrilateral of piazzale Selinunte it will be free. “However, we ask in exchange those who finish the course to act as trainers for those who will come later, so as to immediately expand the offer”, Alessandro continues. Those who attend the course “will soon start earning with the skills that will be taught, for example through commissions for sites that need programmers for small jobs. If you become economically autonomous, you are even more inclined to continue, we try to give it a boost ».
Public housing in the San Siro district, on the outskirts of Milan. Tech7 coding courses will be held in this area.
Hopefully, the girls will be involved
In the long run, if Tech7 grows as hoped, the positive effects could fall on the whole neighborhood, which would be more cohesive: “The boys could help the elderly in online procedures, and maybe they could be able to stop the white flightthe flight of whites from neighborhoods with high migratory density such as piazzale Selinunte and its surroundings: today in the schools of San Siro 95% of the pupils are foreigners, or children of foreigners “, adds the councilor of Municipio 7. Not only: to be inclusive, we need to involve more girls, still too far from Stem. “GirlGeek was born in MolenGeek,” says Omar. “But we too aim to reduce the digital gender divide, we will take initiatives to bring female students closer to coding”.
It will probably start at the end of the year, when the 5000 euros necessary to reimburse the trainers’ expenses have been collected, students and former students of Computer Science who make their skills and passion available to others. The figure is not high, the project deserves. Let’s help them get started. The redemption of the periphery also passes through Tech7.
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