YOUNG PROFESSIONALS: THE IMPORTANCE OF AGGREGATION, by: Eleonora Smargiassi– Italy

 In Italy, as in other countries in the Europe and in the rest of the world, more and more job policies tend to require the presence of young professionals within engineering companies to be able to participate in public competitions. The purpose of these policies is to ensure the inclusion of young and newly graduated people in the working groups to insert in the labour market: but is it a good policy? Often it is only a pro forma, the newly graduated is included in the working group but in fact the role played is often marginal.

 So what can we do to make our work and preparation concrete and recognized? The answer is not so obvious.

The strength that distinguishes young people and differentiates them from the previous generation is their ability to interact, using new technologies and sharing. Our strength must be the ability to know how to use such peculiarities in our favor.

Aggregation, sharing experiences and ideas, and getting to know new perspectives, is therefore crucial: it must not be done in a sterile way and without goals, but aiming to continue to grow from a professional and educational point of view. Our little Italian experience could be a concrete example of how important it is to develop a group of young professionals ready to get involved. Driven by the experiences and enthusiasm already experienced in other countries, we have decided to embark on this new experience, trying to create a group of young professionals each with their own cultural background and experience.

In our meetings we organized conferences with representatives in various subjects, such as BIM technician, World Bank experts, geologists, etc. We have tried to trace a cognitive path starting from the needs of the group and thus create a series of meetings and summits that can stimulate new interests or deepen themes that are considered topical or able to help in our work.

Thanks to this experience we have been able to deepen an important issue, such as the approach to environmental disasters that are affecting Italy, in order to trace a possible prevention guide. Thanks to meetings, reflections and debates we have been working together, we have been able to develop a consistent investigation process that has enabled us to formulate a hypothesis of intervention strategies to prevent damage to things and people due to seismic events.

In addition, we have tried to identify the lesson learned from the old generations experience, mainly in relation to their focus on post-event rebuilding and ignore the importance and crucial of working on the prevention stage. We have therefore suggested that a missing element is the raising of the awareness of private individuals, public bodies, banks, able to make it understood the technical and economic improvements that adequate prevention would bring.

To get this, specialized figures should be formed, and they would be professionals able to bring benefits to both engineering companies and to the well-being of society. The Young Professionals are able to dress up this role, thanks to their training and ability to interact on multiple levels.

Labor policies should invest in this, giving credit to the knowledge of young people and to their ideas.