“To put on the net all the people of good will who care about our land and who want to compare ideas on the social and economic development of Calabria”.

This was the 'spark' that gave birth to the Calabria Dinamica social group in 2012, an idea of ​​Professor Domenico Nicolò, full professor of Business Administration and Director of the ReTMES Laboratory - Research Team for Mediterranean Entrepreneurship and Startups of the Mediterranean University of Reggio Calabria. A network of entrepreneurs, university professors and professionals with the participation of some institutional representatives. The project intends to rally all the healthy forces of the territory to write together a new page of rebirth and positive construction of our region in one of the saddest and blindest of history.

Creating a bank of ideas and development projects from which everyone can draw is the goal of the initiative that "has no purpose of electoral support for candidates or political forces". Calabria Dinamica, which “currently has more than 5,500 people on Facebook and more than 200 on WhatsApp” was revived today in a difficult and unprecedented situation but perhaps, also for this reason, a harbinger of opportunities. As Einstein argued: "Creativity is born of anguish, as the day is born from the dark night. It is in the crisis that inventiveness, discoveries and great strategies are born [...] Without crisis there are no challenges, without challenges life is routine, a slow agony. Without crisis there are no merits. It is in the crisis that the best of each of us emerges; without crisis any wind becomes a light breeze ”.

What lesson, in your opinion, can we learn from this difficult moment? The pandemic has taught us, among other things, to separate the essential from the non-essential in our life; to select, to choose. In your opinion, what do we have to “save” and what to trash in today's world and the way of life of the 21st century?

This crisis, greatly exacerbated by the pandemic, began at the beginning of the millennium and seems to have no end. It confronts us with the need to find a solution, engaging with professionalism and determination in our work. If you don't react, you will inevitably end up succumbing. The time has come for a burst of pride. We Calabrians have to collaborate and get serious to work, overcoming our indolence. We must also choose the political class better.

What development project do you have in mind for Calabria?

We are writing the program together, networking the brains of university professors, accountants, lawyers, journalists, students, who want to discuss and make their expertise and experience available to our land. Thus in Calabria Dinamica study groups are being born that work online on social innovation, transport and logistics, cultural and natural heritage, economic development and startups, agriculture, digitization, work and professional training. Personally, I strongly believe in quality agro-industry, given that our most important entrepreneurs operate in this sector, as well as in tourism. Calabria must immediately create a permanent agri-food Expo of the Mediterranean. By hosting exhibitors from Africa and Southern Europe, it can become a center of gravity in the economy of this area of ​​the world.

She declared, presenting her project: "I want to put my skills at the service of the community, even outside the university classrooms, especially the skills in the field of startups and business creation, which is so much needed in Calabria". How will you be able to concretely express your commitment and what contribution in terms of skills will the other components of Calabria Dinamica be able to provide?

I am an expert in startups and information systems for planning and management control, but in the Calabria Dinamica group there are many professionals in all sectors. Calabria Dinamica members meet every Saturday at 5.30 pm on Google meet to discuss even if, in truth, the exchange of ideas is continuous. Daily messages are shared in the Whatsapp group and confronted. People are hungry for politics, they want to participate, exchange ideas, do what has not been done in party headquarters for years.

Networking in a society like the Calabrian one, scarcely inclined to cooperation, also presupposes a change of mentality and pace. Should cultural work also be done in this sense?

Certainly. The closure to collaboration, both in terms of capital injection and on that of management, hinders development. In the group we are debunking the myth that it is not possible to collaborate and network people in Calabria.

Imagining a development project means declining it in all its parts with a precise time schedule, implementation tools and operational arms that concretely follow up on as imagined. How do you plan to do?

We are not a political force, we are not a movement, but only a social group, which wants to put our development program at the service of politicians of good will.

Since the first meeting of Calabria Dinamica on social networks, it has been stigmatized by many that in Calabria there is a lack of business culture. You who are an expert in start-ups and business creation, what do you think we should start from?

From the business culture and, above all, that of work, to be disseminated in schools and universities through the example of many entrepreneurs who, despite everything, keep hard and invest in their business. If we manage to give birth to many successful innovative companies, many will follow suit. Positive examples are an incentive to do more and better.

Each redemption and development project illuminates the perspective and awakens the desire of many Calabrians of good will who really care about this land, to make a personal contribution. But, to prevent everything from being shipwrecked against the rocks of the impossibility of concrete implementation, how to proceed?

Development presupposes the liberation from the cancer of 'Ndrangheta and the putting aside of indolence, induced in many by decades of welfare, otherwise,  no development process will ever be successful.