Success story: Anamaria PAPESTIEVA (NE) and Ottavio SGROSSO (HE)
Brief introduction
Anamaria Papestieva is an e-business graduate, but she soon realised that she wanted to work with a more creative field. So, she started her work and self-education in the web design and development sector, while she came across and applied to the EYE program. Lacking entrepreneurial skills and experience, she lounged to look for an experienced entrepreneur that would help her in acquiring the needed skills for her future business.
Ottavio Sgrosso, Founder & CEO of “Pushapp”, seemed to have all the excellence and expertise she was searching for.
Ottavio is passionate about digital entrepreneurship. Over the last years, he counselled several startups, supporting them in the phase of business idea validation. He learned about the EYE program at a startup networking event in his hometown and imagined it was a good way to share domain expertise, network and energy among motivated people. He was right; and he found this motivation to Anamaria.
Activities undertaken:
Among the activities undertaken, the most significant one was Anamaria’s involvement in the Pushapp Lab, a startup accelerator program, where she was entrusted with various tasks for its successful completion. As the program was developing, she was involved in all stages of realisation and the startups progress. During this collaboration she managed to observe and get familiar with the requirements needed to develop her own start up and the difficulties that might arise during this process.
One of the most appreciated things from her side was the constant availability of the HE and every team member. At all times she found them eager to provide feedback and share their thoughts and ideas. Ottavio himself and the overall company culture contributed to her positive experience and made the time in the business more enjoyable. Also it helped her develop better relationships with the team and be even more productive.
Benefits achieved:
For Anamaria, the exchange was extremely fruitful, as she was involved in various tasks and actively participated in brainstorming. Learning how to undertake a whole project, starting from client briefing to final product delivery, benefit her regarding communication and time management. Being an active member of a business team made her aware of the importance of team work and strengthened her intuition and leadership skills.
For Ottavio, Anamaria’s contribution has been significant as she shared a valuable know-how in a field yet to be mastered by his company: front end development. She was able to communicate all her ideas and suggestions effectively and she played a major role in the acceleration program for digital startups, the Pushapp Lab, impressing the team with her skills and results.
Ottavio and Anamaria decided to continue their cooperation after the official end of the exchange. The exchange was organized by NIO Asset Technology (Greece) and HIO Eduforma (Italy).
NE Quotation: EYE program helped me gain technical skills and capabilities, but also enriched my networking and communication skills and strengthened my self-confidence and decisiveness in favor of the role of new entrepreneur
HE Quotation: Hosting foreigner entrepreneurs can generate an enormous value as I strongly believe that diversity and inclusion is a competitive advantage that improves the creativity, innovation and performance of our people and products.
Local contact points involved in the exchange:
New entrepreneur’s contact point:
Asset Technology (Athens, Greece)
Stylianos-Manos Andreadis
Host entrepreneur’s contact point:
Eduforma (Padova, Italy)
Dario Dessanai
This article was funded by the European Union’s COSME Programme (2014-2020).
The content of this article represents the views of the author only and it is her sole responsibility; it cannot be considered to reflect the views of the European Commission and/or the Executive Agency of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) or any other body of the European Union. The European Commission and the Agency do not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains.
