return ticket to usa: two sant’anna school students received U.S. - italy fulbright binational commission grant awards for circular economy innovation process
Guia Bianchi, Sant’Anna School PhD student at the Institute of Management received a six-month grant by the U.S.-Italy Fulbright Binational Commission – Fondazione Simone Cesaretti to work at UCLA (University of California -Los Angeles) and address the key issues relating to the circular economy. Matteo Favilli, undergraduate student attending the Innovation Management joint degree program with the University of Trento, received the U.S. – Italy Fulbright BEST grant. The BEST- Business Exchange and Student Training bilateral program aims at training the future Italian corporate innovation leaders by exposing talented students to the best practices of Silicon Valley. Favilli is expected to engage with stakeholders beyond academia through research and projects to promote circular economy new approaches. The BEST program with the collaboration of companies Enel, RDS, Mind the Bridge and Invitalia will allow Matteo Favilli to develop an “Open Innovation” “64Safety” project delivering new products, services, and sources of revenue.
In 2017, Guia Bianchi, applied for the PhD program Sustainability Management. Her research project about the “Life Cycle Assessment” on-going evolution involves successfully managing research activity through the transition to the circular economy impacts on products and systems over environmental and resource issues.
“My dream was to become a Doctoral Student at Sant’Anna School. My aspirations can be achieved through hard work and the support of key people, my supervisors Francesco Testa and Marco Frey. The Institute of Management at Sant’Anna School is committed to addressing the key challenges that the world is facing today: sustainability and circular economy principles. This Fulbright grant will help me to develop my research towards sustainability pathways”, said Guia Bianchi.
During her period of study at UCLA, Guia Bianchi will be guided by supervisor Charles Corbett, professor of Operations Management and Sustainability. Her research project is focusing on transnational business value chain. In addition to providing support for twenty firms, Bianchi will investigate how value chain improvements can be reconfigured to cover the needs of these firms.
“As a Sant’Anna School student I had the opportunity to be exposed to personalized learning models and acquire valuable skills – said Matteo Favilli – I will be prepared for success in college but it will take creativity and new solutions to combine our learnings with innovative research. Thanks to my learner-centered experience and my “64Safety” colleagues Gherardo Montemagni, Ilaria Bedin, Fabio Silvestri and Davide Silvestri, I hope I can grow my leader capacity to implement research-based strategies and offer fresh new ideas”.
Durig his six-month period of study, Matteo Favilli’s talent will be challenged with projects by visionary academics and innovation leaders. New growth drivers will switch their traditional learning towards real-world challenges to leverage new ways of “Open Innovation” and “Best Practices”.
Photo Gallery: Guia Bianchi and Matteo Favilli
