I was born on March 31, 1974 in Florence. I attended the Liceo Scientifico in Scandicci and the Faculty of Law. I have never made a secret of my passion for politics and dream to contribute to changing the world, with the deep conviction that this change should start with and come from young people.
This is what inspired me to found Progetto Città in 1995 which still today, through public meetings, private seminars and training schools, pursues the goal of educating future leaders in a pragmatic manner, and avoiding the costly mistakes that can come from improvisation and amateurism.
It was with this same ambition that I founded the Osservatorio Permanente Giovani – Editori in 2000, together with Cesare Romiti and Andrea Riffeser Monti.
The Osservatorio is an organization that strives to contribute to making the youth of today the critical readers of tomorrow, to mold them into better citizens, more committed actors of change, and more active protagonists of a stronger democracy. Today, this civic effort includes the active participation of 23 prestigious newspapers, 15 foundations of banking origin, and 10 corporations committed to social responsibility. The Osservatorio has been able to count on the extraordinary work of over a thousand secondary school teachers over the years, and has reached millions of Italian high school students between the ages of 14 and 18.
Il Quotidiano in Classe” – the Osservatorio Permanente Giovani – Editori’s signature project, introduces some of the most prestigious national newspapers into the classrooms of Italian upper secondary schools. These precious information tools enable Italian teachers to introduce civic education in an interactive and innovative way, where students are asked to compare at least three different sources of information to appreciate how the same news can be presented differently by different journalistic sources, thus enabling them to be civic actors rather than mere spectators.
The efforts of Progetto Città and the Osservatorio Permanente Giovani – Editori are best incapsulated in a Native American saying which also forms the basis of my personal commitment, a saying that rings as a premonition, reminding us that ‘we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children’, and underscoring the commitment to make it a better place than we found it.
