2 min.
Lorenzo Dente (19) lives with his parents in Scampia, a neighbourhood in the northern suburbs of Naples and one of the most problematic areas in southern Italy in terms of unemployment, school dropout rate and criminality.
Lorenzo is one of the 6000 young men and women aged 16-24 who participated in Project Meet No Neet, part of the global YouthSpark Programme, which selected the best enterprise and social innovation projects developed by students. Together with his classmates, Lorenzo developed project Clean Up and Innovate and launched a crowdfunding campaign on Phyrtual.org with the Mu Future? #itsuptome.
Lorenzo defines himself as “a normal boy from Scampia.” He attended the Virgilio IV Middle School located right in front of the infamous “Vela Rossa” and the Galileo Ferraris High School, where he studied computer science because he “loves computers and coding.”
Lorenzo graduated this year. He surprised the exam committee by beginning the presentation of his thesis with the Microsoft MTA Certification (Networking/Database) that he obtained last year through the Voucher Campaign. Not only did he get the highest grade possible, he even earned five bonus points! Now, Lorenzo will not have to join the many that left his neighbourhood in search of work in Germany, as his brother did, too. He is studying Engineering in Computer Science at University.
Lorenzo "YouthSpark Star": the Scampia story has become a best case for the Microsoft Programme.
