New vitality to companies and firms: here come the “JEBE - student consultants for business” generating most innovative ideas for business, communications and engineering
Student consultants arrive in Pisa, too. They are a group of students of Sant'Anna School for Advanced Studies, attending highly specialized courses and offering their outstanding training and education to companies, through "Jebe" consulting, an acronym for "Junior Enterprise Business & Engineering", which now counts 23 students, from different research areas such as engineering, economics, law, and political science. The goal is to offer academic excellence to companies, high-quality collaborations that can bring benefits to all organizations. In fact, on the one hand, students acquire new skills, enhancing learning by integrating theory and practice; on the other, companies get high quality services at affordable price for strategic sectors such as business, communications, engineering. To get these services, companies and firms pay a fee, and all profits go to "Jebe", to be reinvested in specialized training programs in addition to the university education. Obviously, Jebe members benefit from these additional training activities. Besides, the formula ensures benefits for everyone: companies which obtain value-added services; students who come into direct contact with the outside world and can "self-finance" their own additional training.
The "Junior Enterprise" is a model recognized and affirmed all around Italy and Europe, with about 280 teams from 14 countries, offering their knowledge to small businesses and also to international top companies. Amazon, Google and Lamborghini – to name a few – have turned over the years to the "Junior Enterprise", developing several projects. Since May 2016, the Sant'Anna School "Junior Enterprise Business & Engineering" has joined “Jade Italy”, a network that covers a large area in Italy. It is a major accomplishment appreciating the work done so far, as the associated students point out. All over Italy there are about 10 similar groups, mostly concentrated in the North, but that of Sant'Anna School has features that makes it unique: it is the first group established as part of a top university and is the only one in Italy which offers business consulting in computer, communication and information sciences, service design and engineering.
The "Jebe" logo resembles a bridge and effectively expresses the desire to narrow the gap between academia and management. The services offered, ranging from market analysis to mechanical engineering design, go through social media marketing, also creating new apps and developing websites. The initiative has been greeted with enthusiasm by many professors and the rector Pierdomenico Perata, who stressed that “the birth of 'Jebe' falls within the scope of Sant'Anna School for Advanced Studies and represents an added value in terms of learning experiences for our students”.
“The idea of setting up 'Jebe' – the president Antonello Congedo says – is the story of four friends starting a company together. We were very happy, from the beginning, to collect other students enthusiasm and willing to take on new challenges. Now, the challenge is to convince companies that a group of enterprising students could be a source of innovation, creativity and added value. At the moment, we are working on three projects and we have received many orders, demonstrating how services offered are in line with the market needs. Knowledge is not enough; we the 'Jebe’ boys, apply our know-how – Antonello Congedo concludes his speech – and, above all, we are ready to meet the challenge”.
