NODES CHALLENGES: Initiatives for territorial innovation On Monday, July 7, 2025, from 2:30 PM to 5:15 PM, a meeting entitled "NODES CHALLENGES Initiatives for Local Innovation" will be held at Villa Toeplitz in Varese.
The event, organized by the University of Insubria, leader of Spoke 3, was designed to present to citizens, businesses, and researchers the results of three challenges that have involved several Uninsubria students in recent months.
Specifically, these students are from the Department of Economics, coordinated by Professors Patrizia Gazzola, Rossella Locatelli, and Alessia Pisoni, and from the Department of Law, Economics, and Cultures, coordinated by Professor Roberta Minazzi. They have had the opportunity to collaborate with leading local businesses.
The three challenges: "Business Tools and Strategies for the Promotion and Communication of Cultural Initiatives for Nonprofits," "Wood for Innovative Structures at the Service of Sustainable Tourism," and "Wonderwood 2030" aimed to expose students to the comprehensive challenges companies face daily in their business and development journeys, and to develop targeted projects.
Challenge: "Business Tools and Strategies for the Promotion and Communication of Cultural Initiatives for Nonprofits" - Department of Economics
Each project was based on the management of a program of subprojects with a tutor acting as advisor and program management officer. This enabled students to work in teams on interconnected yet independent activities, each with specific objectives, deadlines, and deliverables within an integrated project ecosystem. This methodology enabled students to concretely develop their transversal skills (both classroom-acquired and personal) in a real-world context.
LAKE WRITINGS
a. Mission: Culture as a strategic lever enabling new tourism formats and combating unbalanced tourism (aka overtourism).
b. Operational objective: Create new experiential cultural formats with a multidisciplinary, evocative, accessible, and memorable narrative and artistic approach.
ENVY BOOKTRAILER
a. Mission: Expand the reach of young audiences within the publishing market through strategic use of social media and innovation of the in-store and online customer journey, benefiting both small and large publishing houses.
b. Operational objective: Increase sales of books for young audiences through targeted campaigns on TikTok and the introduction of promotional video trailers during the product evaluation phase, both online and in digital stores.
HARONIZATION OF TOURIST FLOWS AND NEW EXPERIENTIAL FORMATS
PILOT CASE DEVELOPMENT OF THE "MUSEO DELLA BARCA LARIANA"
a. Mission: Culture as a strategic lever enabling new tourism formats and combating unbalanced tourism (aka overtourism). Use case: Revamping the Lariana Boat Museum
b. Operational objective: Create new experiential cultural formats with a multidisciplinary, evocative, accessible, and memorable cultural, artistic, and sports program. Development of the use case in two steps:
1. Cover operating costs with a short-term strategy;
2. Integrate the museum into tourism formats with a medium-term strategy.
Challenge: "Wood for innovative structures serving sustainable tourism" - Department of Economics
As part of NovelloCase's activities, an entrepreneurial project has been conceived, currently in the early-stage phase. The project involves the construction of "nomadic housing modules" that can be used primarily for sustainable tourism experiences (e.g., immersive nature experiences). To implement it, students were asked to conduct strategic and financial analyses to assess the project's feasibility and sustainability.
The challenge proposed by NovelloCase represented an excellent opportunity to "experiment" with innovative teaching methods, involving both students from the GEEM/IBE Master's Degree Program (course "Open Innovation and Startup Ecosystems") and students from the EDIFI/FIMEDIS Master's Degree Program (course "Lab: Sustainability and the Financial System"). The former focused on analyzing the business and market model, the latter on analyzing the investment's economic and financial sustainability.
At the end of the semester, the two working groups submitted to NovelloCase a proposed "strategic roadmap" to support the company's management decision-making process. To this end, the various "strategic options" formulated by the students were supported by in-depth economic and financial analyses that allowed the company to assess the feasibility of the project (in terms of investment, economic return, and medium- to long-term sustainability) and then its implementation.
This collaborative experiment among students from diverse backgrounds, based on a cross-fertilization approach (students involved in group work tend to "absorb knowledge," contributing their skills and expertise to the realization of projects with a common goal), was a resounding success among the students involved and was fully appreciated by the company management, who complimented the faculty for their work in addressing the proposed challenge.
Challenge: "Wonderwood 2030" Department of Law, Economics, and Cultures
The challenge, launched in collaboration with Professor Stefania Cerutti of the University of Eastern Piedmont, saw the active participation of students, both male and female, who were asked to develop strategic proposals for the tourism and leisure development of the Wonderwood park in the mountainous area of Trarego Viggiona (VB), on the Piedmontese side of Lake Maggiore. The projects had to answer a series of concrete questions posed by Wonderwood, an innovative startup in the sustainable entertainment sector, with the aim of analyzing development scenarios, market targets, and potential for transforming the area into a new sustainable, multi-target destination open year-round.
During the event, professors, students, and representatives of the companies involved will discuss the challenges, objectives, and results achieved.
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