Laura Orestano: I am the CEO of SocialFare. I have a long experience in profit and non-profit organizations and focus my work on how to make social value become economic value to foster systemic sustainability and social progress. SocialFare is a unique purpose-driven social enterprise and together with the team I am honored to push the boundaries of experimenting social innovations and impact investing initiatives to create evidence for developing social impact economy and sustainable growth.
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Get to know our team! Interview #2 SocialFare
EU ECO-TANDEM PROGRAMME | May 20, 2021
A few words about SocialFare...
SocialFare is the first Center for Social Innovation in Italy. Incubator certified by the Ministry of Economic Development, it accelerates social impact startups and innovative solutions to contemporary societal challenges, while generating new economy.
Community engagement, capacity building and co-design are at the basis of our work: we apply Systemic design, Design Thinking, Theory of Change, social finance as core methodologies to develop impact projects with our partners and stakeholders.
Q1: Tell us something about yourself and your role in your organization.
Quynh Nhu Nguyen: I am a service and ux designer in SocialFare. I previously worked in a communication agency and 5 years in an ICT research centre exploring how technologies and gamification dynamics can enable crowdsourcing data collection to support decision making processes, ranging from various contexts (i.e., hazard scenarios, viticulture, ...). In SocialFare, within the Impact Design Team, I work as a service designer with public and private organizations to model, prototype and validate services through co-design workshops based on the design thinking and systemic design methodologies.
Silvia Bergamo: I am Communication and Event designer at SocialFare. After a 15-year experience as a communicator in the Third Sector and Social Economy, in 2018 I started focusing more specifically on Social Innovation field. In SocialFare I deal with all issues concerning institutional communication and I offer training and coaching support to startuppers and entrepreneurial teams involved in our acceleration programs.
Matteo Lupetti: Born and raised in the city of the leaning tower, after graduation I worked 5 years in the nonprofit sector in Italy and abroad. After working with the local Chamber of Commerce on business development and digitalization of SME I joined SocialFare as project manager and creative processes facilitator.
Martina Muggiri: Martina Muggiri is a designer with more than 10 years of experience in the field of Sustainable Design, Systemic Design and Human Centered Approach. In SocialFare, she is the coordinator of the acceleration program aimed at social impact startups, managing the organizational aspects, the startup’s deal flow and tutoring the companies’ target and product/service validation and supporting the startup’s branding and marketing strategy.
Filippo Psacharopulo: Filippo graduated from ESCP Europe in 2008 in Paris and from Università degli Studi di Torino (Business Administration). He joined SocialFare in 2017 to help set up the investment vehicle to support accelerated startups. He has a background in Venture Capital and Private Equity funds.
Marco Cornetto: I am Program Lead and Social Business Developer at SocialFare. After previous work, study and volunteering experiences across Australia, Netherlands, Spain and Vietnam, in 2018 I joined SocialFare to support formal and informal teams defining and designing sustainable, viable business models for their early-stage ideas. I have an academic background in entrepreneurship, innovation and fundraising for the Third Sector.
Giuliana Gheza: I am service and social designer in SocialFare. After working as a designer for different realities I nourished my academic and professional background in the field of social innovation and sustainability doing a Master focusing on how design could be used as a mindset, set of approaches, methodologies and tools in order to tackle societal challenges. In SocialFare I am applying all these new and different schemes of designing for good and sustainability by co-designing, coordinating and implementing social innovation processes and programmes, consultancies and capacity building workshops for private and public organization.
Q2: In which ways is your organisation committed to sustainability? Which are your personal motivations to join the team of EU ECO-TANDEM?
All SocialFare programs and activities are inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda. As our goal is to support entrepreneurial projects aimed at generating positive social impact on communities, our commitment to sustainability is a natural consequence and expression of our identity. For us, sustainability encompasses three spheres: environmental (respect for resources), social (well-being of people), economic (equity).
In our solutions we try to achieve the highest possible level of sustainability on these three spheres and at the same time, from a systemic perspective, to maintain a good balance between them. We try to break the status quo with continuous experiments that introduce new dynamics and perspectives to address the complexity and social challenges of this era.
Q3: Why do you think sustainability represents a big potential for the tourism industry?
Tourism is a key sector for the economy of many European and Mediterranean countries and we cannot underestimate its impact on social, environmental and economical issues on the whole international community. Developing sustainable practices will probably and hopefully be an essential asset for operators who want to play a role in the touristic economy in the next future and this is the right time to strongly promote and encourage the eco-transition.
Q4: Why should a tourism SME join the EU ECO-TANDEM programme?
Collaboration and dialogue with different realities from us are always positive and generative of new ideas, reflections, and innovations. And EU ECO-TANDEM programme aims to pry upright on this, adding another important component, which is a clear and shared goal: looking at rethinking new approach and methods of tourism with a view to environmental, social, and economic sustainability, the collaboration between such different subjects (i.e. start-ups and traditional SMEs) can truly represent a way of generating new economy.
By putting themselves into play at an international level, participants leave their comfort zone to co-design new resilient ways to react to the current context, which is particularly difficult.
Q5: Describe the EU ECO-TANDEM programme in three words.
Collaborative, innovative, focused.
Q6: A last question! Which is your favourite type of sustainable vacation?
In SocialFare, we consider collaboration with communities of practice and the local context as fundamental, as a starting point for defining shared and co-designed innovations. And in agreement with this belief, the ideal tourism for us is the one that really lives the local territory, with a view to a journey of discovery.
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