The next generation of Impact Entrepreneurs Choose to act!

From sustainability to digital, from health to education and IT, the projects presented by ESCP students during the “Choose to act! Pitch your project for change” investigated the varied issues facing our future lives.

Since January, Impact Entrepreneurship Option-E students have followed a full immersion path to transform themselves into the new generation of entrepreneurs able to create their own business with an economic, social and environmental impact. After their intense journey of growth, the Master in Management students presented the business ideas they had developed over the semester. During the event, all the teams pitched in front of their peers and jury members on Zoom while being live-streamed on YouTube.

Alisa Sydow, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the ESCP Turin Campus, was the event host. After the presentation of the jury members, and the welcome message by Prof. Dr René Mauer of the Jean-Baptiste Say Institute and Professor of Entrepreneurship at ESCP Berlin Campus, the students took the floor and presented their projects.

With their pitches and the enlightening answers in the Q&A session with the jury, Option-E students demonstrated, with a critical and independent mindset, their ability to create value by promoting sustainability.

While the jury was deciding the winner of the competition, Alberto Cartasegna, Founder and CEO of Miscusi, gave his inspiring and motivating keynote speech.

Prof Francesco Rattalino announced the winning team: Cloudwise, made up of Pietro Carabelli, Francesco Cundari, Giada Gatti, Caterina Nassi and Romain Van Gaver. Their project, Cloudwise, focuses on increasing the awareness of the emissions created even by digital communications, such as emails, file storage and social media. Through providing consulting and certificates to businesses, Cloudwise aims to reduce their digital footprint. The team won 500 euros, which they decided to donate to the non-profit Protect Our Winters.

The group Park-IT, whose members were Gian Nicolò Bernini, Hugo Fixot, Arianna Pricco and Ruben Rinaldi, was awarded in the "Good care" category for the excellent teamwork done during the semester. The aim of Park-IT is to develop sustainable and safe bicycle parking silos in Milan, encouraging more people to cycle to work.

Alisa Sydow was impressed not just by the results but by the process that delivered those results and by the students’ entrepreneurial mindset: “It was a very exciting journey in which I was able to see how all groups turned their initial ideas into concrete business models and convincing pitches: ready for action!”, she said after the event.

Congrats to the two winning teams for your achievement and innovative ideas!

Special thanks to all the participants and the members of the jury: Davide Cecchini, Vincenzo Macrì, Laura Orestano, Alessandro Panerai, Francesco Rattalino, and Marcello Tedeschi.

You can find here short video presentations of the six projects:

• AvoMammas
• Cloudwise
• ITiva
• Park-IT
• Peerlivery
• U-Class

The first edition of the Impact Entrepreneurship Programme - Option-E, co-designed by ESCP Business School and Cottino Social Impact Campus, is a recently developed path to training the next generation of experts in Impact Entrepreneurship. The course is an ESCP Master in Management specialisation to acquire new strategic skills for impact management and the keys to becoming an entrepreneur of the future, building a business that will impact the world.