An Italian Silicon Valley? | America.gov Blogs

Marcello Orizi is one of the millions of students around the world participating in Global Entrepreneurship Week Nov. 15-21. He is co-founder and software strategist for Prossima Isola, an innovative information and communication technologies company in Sardinia, Italy. He also leads two startups, WhereIsNow and Abbuydda.

Marcello Orizi

Three years ago, I resigned from a very good job in Switzerland and returned to my birthplace, Sardinia, an island in Italy, to create my professional dream named Prossima Isola (“Next Island”). Prossima Isola is an Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) company that aims to be a leading company in innovation.

During the last three years, we created a great team of 10 people and have made different projects for our customers. We also launched two startups, Abbuydda and WhereIsNow.

Abbuydda is the first social network for aggregated purchases, a way to repeatedly buy products together with other people belonging to the same group. The goal is to offer producers a new way to sell a guaranteed volume of goods at a better price.

WhereIsNow introduces the concept of self-updating documents, removing the problem of knowing where the latest version of a given document is now. It best fits with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, where a lot of important documents are shared among people who usually use different systems to manage documents.

Recently we joined a co-working network (Cowo) in order to host many individuals inside our offices and create a place where people can share ideas and talents.

I like to consider myself a romantic entrepreneur, and I enjoy creating networks with other entrepreneurs who share this vision. Daniele Idini, my friend and co-founder at Prossima Isola, is surely this kind of entrepreneur.

Last year, Daniele and I were selected to participate in a road show in Silicon Valley, California, and New York City as finalists of the Italian “Mind the Bridge” business plan competition. These places, especially Silicon Valley, gave us the inspiration to try to create a similar environment in Sardinia, Italy … a dream.

Learn more about Marcello and his projects at his blog.

2 thoughts on “An Italian Silicon Valley?”

Interesting to writing about innovation that’s outside of the Silicon Valley.

Abbuydda looks promising. These kind of sites are getting huge. I just recently read how Groupon is exploding after a coupon for the Gap was introduced. It seems like this is the biggest way these sites are growing – working with well established brands and shops. The social networking aspect should help promotion for Abbuydda – but is it enough?

We should all watch this young man’s career with interest. His ICT approach is truly marketable, vis a vis his “Abbuydda” venture. For both producers and consumers, this is “selling money at a discount” since consumers save money, and producers make a guaranteed block of cash they might not otherwise have gained, and which could solve multitudes of cash-flow problems.

What’s more, young Mr. Orizi and his colleagues have launched this concept over the web (a concept near and dear to my heart), which keeps overhead much lower, thus raising the chances for their success.

In my opinion, stories like this should be feature in general financial news, as the optimism, innovation and irrepressible nature of youthful business ventures can be a real motivator to those still wallowing in the hesitancy brought on by the recession.

Boldness builds business. The business world should see the boldness and wisdom of this young man, and the many others like him. It might just be a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for the battle-weary old-guard entrepreneurs.

Dan on 18 November 2010 at 10:01 pm said:

Interesting to writing about innovation that’s outside of the Silicon Valley.

Abbuydda looks promising. These kind of sites are getting huge. I just recently read how Groupon is exploding after a coupon for the Gap was introduced. It seems like this is the biggest way these sites are growing – working with well established brands and shops. The social networking aspect should help promotion for Abbuydda – but is it enough?
Arlen on 29 November 2010 at 6:48 pm said:

We should all watch this young man’s career with interest. His ICT approach is truly marketable, vis a vis his “Abbuydda” venture. For both producers and consumers, this is “selling money at a discount” since consumers save money, and producers make a guaranteed block of cash they might not otherwise have gained, and which could solve multitudes of cash-flow problems.

What’s more, young Mr. Orizi and his colleagues have launched this concept over the web (a concept near and dear to my heart), which keeps overhead much lower, thus raising the chances for their success.

In my opinion, stories like this should be feature in general financial news, as the optimism, innovation and irrepressible nature of youthful business ventures can be a real motivator to those still wallowing in the hesitancy brought on by the recession.

Boldness builds business. The business world should see the boldness and wisdom of this young man, and the many others like him. It might just be a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for the battle-weary old-guard entrepreneurs.