“Flying high is possible”
A group of young people experienced this when they met together to exchange ideas with seasoned entrepreneurs in several fruitful workshops. The entrepreneurs shared their past experiences in the business world, even the painful ones, and the youth with enthusiasm and curiosity encouraged them to live the ideals of the Economy of Communion (EoC) in an even more radical way. “From the youth we received more than what we gave,” was the comment of one of the entrepreneurs.

Fraternity is the “plus” of the EoC manager
The workshops were based on the talks delivered by Cecilia Cantone Manzo, president of EoC s.p.a., the society that manages the Lionello Business Park, and by Prof. Luigino Bruni, who described the ideal EoC manager, pointing out that fostering fraternity should be one of his or her positive traits along with all the other qualities required of an entrepreneur, namely the ability to risk, to innovate, and to carry out a project.

A push to do business innovatively
A group of experts presented the typical problems that can arise, considering them from the point of view of the “culture of giving.” The subject proved to be of great interest to the young participants, who were struck by the novelty of such an entrepreneurship. A student from Naples remarked, “Coming here reinforced our will to do business, to do something new.” The youth expressed the request that a similar appointment at Loppiano be repeated every 6 months.

Unexpected progress in business management
On April 24, the meeting opened its doors to other entrepreneurs. One of them, a native of Piedmont, Italy [a province known for its business-minded population] shared his experience saying, “In spite of the difficulties and the general economic crisis, we have seen a continuous and notable increase in sales. It’s been my experience that the Gospel’s ‘hundredfold’ never comes in a big, cumbersome package (the kind that winning a lottery would mean, for example), which can also ruin the harmony of normal daily life. The ‘hundredfold’ arrives in a very discreet way. Many times our financial officer – at about mid-year, for example – would warn us of a borderline situation. We would just go on working, with renewed sprint, and at year-end, to our real surprise, he would announce that beyond our every expectation, our business had made progress.”