Who we are
Massimo Coa
Massimo’s career represents a dynamic path across multiple sectors, characterized by constant attention to novelties and innovation. Dedication and experiences vary and have led to the creation of projects of economic and social relevance. Today, he is competent in European planning, marketing, microeconomics, and tourist valorization of cultural and territorial assets. He speaks and writes in English and is skilled in the use of various computer software. His multi-faceted career demonstrates a relentless passion for innovation and sustainable development.
At the end of the 1980s, Massimo began working for CEDAC (Regional Theater Circuit of Sardinia), creating services for the theater club intended for subscribers of the prose season. This project included agreements with various interlocutors: collaboration with the Finarte auction house for the appraisal of the members’ works of art; the agreement with Centromed Viaggi to participate in the Verona Arena season; the taxi service in front of the theater; the collaboration with the Cantina Sociale di Monti to give away a selection of wines for the renewal of the subscription.
In the early 90s, Massimo tried his hand at marketing tourist services. As marketing manager for Tanit Viaggi of Carboni, he developed a project on religious rites and equestrian festivals in Sardinia. This project allows him to participate in the training course for managers and managers of the PA “Tourist Settlements 2” organized by Formez. In this period, he developed an educational path entitled “Pastoralism and archeology of the agricultural landscape”, focused on the territories of central Sardinia. On behalf of Centromed Viaggi, he studies the functioning of the Abruzzo National Park and the Circeo National Park, from which arises the organization of an educational coordination with experts of various backgrounds to insert the themes of Environmental Education into tourist experiences of educational kind.
At the end of the 1990s, as a consultant and then sole director of Ambientazione Srl, Massimo collaborated with Ires Piemonte on the issues of valorizing the intangible skills of local communities. He designs and creates the ecomuseum network of the Barbagia di Seulo and the medium auction of the Flumendosa, becoming a tourist contact for the national Mondi Locali – Local Worlds network.
In the early 2000s, in conjunction with Italy’s accession to the European Landscape Convention (CEP), it participated in the creation of the “National Landscape Days” with the Mondi Locali network. He founded the “MontagnaSarda” hotel consortium which became a member of the Gal – Sarcidano Barbagia di Seulo, active in the first version of the Local Tourist System of Southern Sardinia.
In 2012 he was included in the regional tourism coordination of Legacoop Sardinia for which he drew up the Strategic Tourism Plan PST2012/2015. In this period, his interest in the third sector brought him closer to the associations that support the National Health Service in alternative care and assistance activities for fragile subjects.
Since 2014 Massimo, as project manager and subsequently president of the ASD “Andalas De Amistade Trekking”, has organized editions of the Mountain Therapy conference “Sentieri di Libertà. He plans the traveling exhibition on the themes of fighting the stigma of mental illnesses. In 2018, after the adoption of the MSP (Maritime Spatial Planning) directive, he developed the Diving Festival “The Marine Landscape according to me” for the Isola Dell’Asinara AMP, included in the Interreg Maritime IT Fr “Neptune” project. Collaborates with FIAS and Fipsas to create the first editions of the Diving Festival. In recent years, Massimo has developed trekking programs for the enjoyment and interpretation of the rural and peri-urban landscape of the metropolitan area of Cagliari and southern Sardinia. He recently developed a proposal focused on the tourism legacy of relationships for the valorization of cultural tourism chains, presented by the Gulf of Asinara Tourist Consortium to the Mirabilia stock exchange. He currently resides in Gorizia, where he is a consultant for the non-profit organization La Tempesta located in the Basaglia Park, supporting the community in expanding social activities.
Michelangelo Altamore
I have always been curious, and this led me to look for new things to do. For more than twenty years I have innovated in the company, starting with research and development, and then carrying out technological, service and market innovation. The thing that amused me most, and still amuses me, is starting new projects – starting from the idea – bringing them up to speed, starting up them towards the development phase; this still amuses me and Xcamp projects satisfy my curiosities.
I can’t say whether I’m curious by nature or by education: certainly, having studied mathematics at university gave me a mindset suited to the purpose and the passion for reading then did the rest: in my model, when I decide to do something, first I investigate the theory and then I look for the practice. And so, after graduation, since I wanted to better understand the corporate world, I attended a Business School to get an MBA.
Among the many new projects that have come my way, the last one (in the company) is the one that changed my life: starting a Corporate Venture Capital and developing the Italian innovation system. Maximum fun, within my project there were hundreds of new projects, curiosity to the nth degree! In that period, I understood that the new was not just a question of business but there was – there still is – the possibility of changing things even in a more radical way, I would say political in the noble sense of the term. So much so that after a few years the company I worked for – which was a particularly cumbersome brand – became restrictive to me and I decided to leave that world and do something on my own.
The first things I did were to return to Palermo – the city where I was born and raised – and start working with schools: I am convinced that human capital is society’s most important asset and that we need to start cultivating it right away. School, in addition to education, should propose models and paths for the development of individuals and the world of innovation offers many beautiful models, things like the sharing or solidarity economy, which perhaps often escape us, but which are there, before our eyes.
In 2013 I organized a Startup Weekend in Palermo, which ended up hosted in an occupied school, the Vittorio Emanuele III, and when the occupiers saw the “grown-ups” having fun inventing, they asked us to organize something similar for them too. A cycle of about ten workshops was born with the aim of preparing the pitch for a new company – of any type: gaming, civic commitment, aquariums, the kids proposed everything – aimed at anyone who wanted to participate regardless of class or age, academic performance. It was a great success, the students had fun and the method worked: two teams of students from Palermo ended up presenting their projects in Monza, the final event of a startup competition reserved for university students (and they made an excellent impression, I would say).
The initiative was awarded as one of the best school-work alternation projects – which was not yet compulsory – by the ministry; we held two other editions, one of which was reserved for teachers from schools in the province, but the classroom interventions were the core of the project.
With the obligation of School-Work Alternation, an experimental platform was born bringing the method online and making it available to schools. It was an opportunity to try formulas, topics, work in class or remotely, tutors and mentors and so on. Four campaigns (school years), three thousand students in ten schools between Palermo, Naples and Marsala, collaborations with universities, museums, companies and more, this is also one of the best national school-work alternation projects.
After the pandemic, my curiosity led me to European projects: so many, on the most disparate topics, constant over time. I enrolled in a Master’s in Planning and Management of European Projects at the International University of Venice, where I met Massimo, and we started writing together; today I continue this adventure, I have changed travel companions, the technology is different, even the areas have changed – not just school, not just school-work alternation or transversal paths etc. – but the curiosity and fun of working especially with younger people and talking about innovation remained – which is talking about everything that surrounds us.
Xcamp s.r.l.s.
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