Even though it may seem challenging to carry out online lessons, we have found a growing attention and participation from students. In fact, we have noted that those who did not feel comfortable enough to participate in class, are now more eager to do so. The explanation behind this phenomenon is probably the fact that the screen acts as a protective shield against shyness. We are now delighted to have a growing participation from all our students.
This is the first time ever that an Urban Clinic’s module is entirely carried on digitally through Webex, the online platform which Luiss makes available to maintain the teaching process.
Friday’s workshop opened with Azzura Spirito’s presentation, spending some words on the work she carries on as community led project designer. In an initial part, students focused in creating a storytelling that could attract the interest of potential investors. Thanks to Azzurra’s knowledge and suggestions, students efficiently worked on the platform “Miro” to transcribe and communicate several ideas simultaneously and more generally to carry out a partecipative process of brainstorming.
During Saturday’s co-working the LabGovers, together with Azzurra Spirito, focused on the benchmark, that is the basis to develop a pitch presentation, which students will have to prepare before next module takes place on April 3rd and 4th. Collecting data efficiently is critical to developing an efficient benchmark. As a first step to individualise which typology of data is necessary to collect, the students worked in teams to write semi-structured interviews about consumer’s habits concerning shopping. The main goals were to find consumption patterns in fashion and second-hand clothes, evaluate how sustainable fashion is perceived and finally customer’s propensity to pay more in order to purchase sustainable fashion clothes.
After discussing the points that emerged during the interviews, students organised themselves in groups to carry on some tasks to move forward in the project. Before next meeting, students will have to create a sample of target personas and their relative customer decision journey and successively incorporate such analysis in the pitch that is slowly coming to life thanks to student’s engagement and commitment.
The LabGovers showed us some great enthusiasm towards the project that is taking shape. Moreover, students are exploring the word of innovative tech models that can combine the themes of the data market and the monitoring of health and consumption. Indeed, digital technologies are becoming more and more fundamental to our everyday lives. Perhaps, the use of the GrInn.City platform that was developed last year, could be instrumental in the acquisition of consumer data, thus taking advantage of the great market possibilities regarding the economy of big data.
Next appointment on April 3th and 4th with Dott. Elena Ciccarelli from NTT Data and a team of experts in digital innovation with the module on “Ux Design for Open and Collaborative Innovation Processes”. During the first part of the laboratory students will analyse the surveys’ outcome on consumers’ habits, which you can find here (https://qtrial2020q1az1.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bkkEOiMMGaQPMWN), and improve the personas identified and relative customer journeys.
We are in the Pigneto neighborhood to meet Flavia Romei, eco-friendly Roman designer. Flavia graduated with an architecture degree, but she has always had a passion for haute couture, learning the art of the profession through amateur courses, until she won a one-year scholarship to the Biella Master of Noble Fibers. After her first work experiences at Bottega Veneta and Dolce & Gabbana, she decided to quit to devote herself to sustainable fashion. This is how Cheap Lobster was born.
Cheap Lobster is an atelier that makes bespoke skirts from pieces of waste fabrics that would otherwise be disposed of or in the worst case burned, causing unimaginable environmental damage. The activity of Flavia essentially consists of a practice of sustainable development in the Roman outskirts. Here are some insights from our conversation with her.
The Cheap Lobster Atelier in Pigneto, Rome (Photo by Cheap Lobster)
What was the impact of
what you have learned during the Master of Noble Fibers in Biella?
It was essential to be
able to know the entire textile clothing supply chain
through a training that combines theory and practice. I had the opportunity to
learn about a multiplicity of realities, traveling to New Zealand, China and
Australia to delve into the specific processes to understand how they are
fundamental to each other. I was able to study in depth every single step of
the textile production chain, from the collection of raw materials, to garment manufacturing. It was during the master’s degree that I realized the
amount of waste generated within the textile industries.
Where do the fabrics
you use to make your skirts come from?
As I said before, during
the master’s degree I realized how much waste is produced
in the industry, and especially I discovered that each step has a specific
waste. For example, once a fabric has been spun, before being sold, it is
subjected to qualitative tests in the laboratory. Regardless of the outcome of
the test, the piece of cloth is not reused and ends up in a warehouse that fills
up and is then emptied. This is where I come in, going to each of my partners
to pick up the fabrics. For the company, it represents a cost, for me a raw
material as well as revenues once they become skirts.
One of Cheap Lobster’s mini skirts (Photo by Cheap Lobster)
Why skirts?
I decided to start
with skirts since I was receiving leftovers of cloth with sizes ranging from 50
centimeters to 1 meter, and a skirt of 40-50 cm is the simplest and most
functional thing to create. Nothing prevents me from experimenting with other
garments and I hope that through Edu LabGov we will design something that can
convey the values of sustainability and ethics without neglecting the
innovative factor, but above
all taking care of
the aesthetics of the garment itself.
How complicated is it
for you to have to go in person to companies all over Italy to pick up your
fabrics?
It does not tire me
too much because the atelier is run entirely by me. I can organize myself
without problems. Surely there are other methods that could facilitate the
whole thing, for example shipping. But since these fabrics are donated, it is
not a great economic burden for me to go collect them in person.
Do you think a
platform that creates links between companies and small regeneration enterprises
like yours can succeed?
Definitely yes. I think that a digital platform would be dually beneficial. Of course it won’t be easy, but surely it would be a useful medium to reduce the environmental impact that the textile industry causes. Above all, it would also be a way to reduce the costs that companies face in disposing of the garments, costs that many times they can’t or don’t want to deal with, thus ending up burning them illegally.
One of Cheap Lobster’s mini skirts (Photo by Cheap Lobster)
The “Entrepreneurship Lab” gave the opportunity to the students to present their ideas and be advised by a panel jury composed by practitioners and professors of different academic backgrounds. The final objective of the whole module, which was successfully achieved, was to highlight the strengths and opportunities of each project idea of the students, so to merge it into a single macro idea and continue developing the project in the course of incoming sessions.
During the workshop on Friday 28th, the Urban Clinic hosted Professor Cavallo, consultant expert in national and international online business development, marketing and digital strategy, as well as teacher and mentor at the Luiss Business School. Following a general introduction to the tools needed to execute an appealing pitch that can attract investors and partners, students had the opportunity to perfect their skills of public speaking and if necessary, edit the form and content before the official presentation. Professor Cavallo’s advices has proved to be valuable and fundamental to achieve the consciousness needed. Moreover, professor Cavallo was able yo facilitate the task by highlighting the points needed to develop a functional business model and make it simple but effective. Students understood how important is to highlight the problem creating an empathic feeling with the interlocutor and than expose the solution supported by analysis of target personas, studies on market validation and market size and business model.
In the first part of the co-working on Saturday 29th, the jury was composed by Alessia Simeone Social Media strategist, Arianna Centofanti from the law firm Giplex; Chistian Iaione co-founder and co-director of LabGov and Professor of Regulatory Innovation, Land use, Urban Law & Policy, and Director of the Master in Law, Digital innovation and Sustainability; Luca Tricarico Phd post-doctoral research in Business and Management Luiss; Alessandro Piperno Phd student in Management Luiss; Giorgio Insom, expert and consultant in Business modeling. Moreover there was Giuseppe Allocca former Luiss student and founder of “Lofoio” enterprise of handicrafts and regeneration fabrics from textile waste in Prato; Francesco Malitesta and Lorenzo Pizzo founders of the Artlab Xnovo and Flavia Romei eco-friendly stylist owner of the atelier Cheap Lobster. The participation of each juror was of fundamental importance since that each juror’s comment focalized on their operational field, creating a 360º scenario that has ensured a more detailed and in-depth evaluation.
Panel Jury
In the second part of the co-working students collaborated to synthesize the three ideas so to elaborate a macro idea analyzing the strengths and opportunities that have been highlighted by the jury. For instance, it has emerged that data analysis was a cross-cutting element. Once the brainstroming process was completed, it was necessary to analyse the feasibility and the market trend behind the idea. The students were therefore divided into groups to analyse the various elements mapping the costs and revenues of each project area and creating a survey so to define the target and the degree of interest and commitment from potential consumers.
Next appointment Saturday, March 7th, with the first session of Community Gardening where students will have an open air Lab in the Luiss Community Garden. The aim of the meeting will be to study natural dyes and go forward with the design of the project idea.
The second module is about to start! How will students’ initial planning ideas become a final project proposal?
On the 28th of February the workshop “Entrepreneurship” will take place in classroom 305b from 4pm to 6pm in the Luiss campus located in Viale Romania, 32. The Urban Clinic will host prof. Alessandro Cavallo, founder of Cavallo Consulting and lecturer & mentor at Luiss Business School. The focus will be on digital analysis and marketing strategy as well as product design and development.
On the 29th of February the co-working “Building a Social Enterprise” will take place in aula Polivalente from 10am to 5pm in the Luiss campus of Viale Romania, 32. During this session the students will present their planning ideas elaborated during the last co-working session and reshaped during the week in teamwork. The ideas will then be judged by a panel of experts who will highlight the strong points, the feasibility and the originality in terms of social impact, sustainability and innovation of every proposed idea. The ultimate goal is to come up with a final merged idea that will be further analysed during the second part of the meeting so to start building a business model.
Aren’t you curious to find out what the final idea will be? Stay up to date by following us on our social channels Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!
On Friday 21th and Saturday 22th the students of the Urban Clinic Edu LabGov 2020 participated to the first workshop and co-working. The main goal of the meeting was to deepen the knowledge about an “Open and Collaborative Innovation” methodology that is lately gaining popularity.
On Friday, Professor Maria Isabella Leone, Director of the master in Open Innovation and IP at Luiss Business School, carried an interactive lesson, successfully involving students in a reasoning process, instead of flooding them with theoretical knowledge which hardly manages to capture students’ interest. The laboratory was based on the analysis of the innovative aspects and strategies of noted fashion brands, namely Ferragamo, Burberry, Piquadro and Stella McCartney and than investigate for business models of companies whose main scope is to revolutionize their activity and differentiate themselves from competitors. The students brought out interesting elements that were a source of reflection for the work they carried out the following day.
What emerged as a common trend is the transformation of waste materials into renewable resources so to create new fibres at low environmental impact. What has been stressed even more is that “Open Innovation” implies collaboration with actors coming from different realities, namely stat-ups, universities, customers, tech industries, incubators, consortia, spin-offs, industries and so on. This means there has to be trust in partnerships but whenever there is a common scope, the collaboration is more prone to be successful and consequentially improve the revenues of all participating actors.
The following day, Alessandro Piperno, PhD student in management at Luiss, exposed what a social enterprises is and how to help communities grow and develop in an urban context. After a brief talk about some important social enterprises like 4ocean, Made in Carcere, Patagonia, and Progetto Quid, students were inspired enough to propose some of their ideas in a process of brainstorming so to come up with three specific ideas to analyse more in detail for the next meeting. The laboratory’s outcome was an important step forward to understand new trends based on upcycle sustainable fashion and circular economy.
Next meeting will be on Friday 28th with the workshop “Entrepreneurship” held by prof. Alessandro Cavallo and Saturday 29th with the co-working “Building a social enterprise” in which EDU 2020 tutors together with a jury of experts will listen to LabGovers’ pitch on their design idea. The laboratory will be an occasion for students to test their ideas and get a feedback from experts in the field so to continue shaping their ideas and let the project evolve throughout the laboratory.
