SME DAY 2024: OVER 50,000 AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF YOUNG PEOPLE AND COMPANIES

1250 companies and around 700 middle and high schools involved
Baroni: we must bridge the digital gap and strengthen technical education. The initiative is a unique opportunity to make young people protagonists of the future of our industry

Rome, 22 November 2024 - The initiative, now in its 15th edition, continues to grow in numbers. Today sees the start of the National Day of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, organised by Piccola Industria Confindustria together with the associations of the System, with a series of initiatives staged in all regions, also scheduled on other dates. 1250 companies involved, around 700 middle and high schools and over 50,000 participants. All the territorial associations of the System are in the field who joined the initiative together with Federchimica and Assosistema.  

The focus remains on the companies' commitment to telling young people about themselves through meetings and guided company visits involving not only students but also teachers, families, local institutions and the press. A fixed appointment in which companies reaffirm their role as social actors in the territory and once again sound the alarm on the huge gap in skills and technical-scientific professional figures that afflicts the country. Since 2010year of the event's inception, the SMEs of Confindustria have opened their doors to a total of more than 550,000 boys.
 
L' edition 2024 has as focus 'Building. Building awareness of one's aspirations and the opportunities to realise them. Building knowledge to face today's and tomorrow's jobs with the right skills and confidence. Building innovation by placing new digital tools and artificial intelligence at the service of creativity, imagination and knowledge. Building dialogue and exchange between different cultures and peoples and positive relationships in school, profession and society. Building new business opportunities to grow as a company and to contribute more and more to the economic and social development of territories and the country. Building sustainability with a view to the wellbeing of future generations and new skills to manage change, enhancing innovative capacity and the strengths of Italian know-how.
 
As of 2021, the event has obtained the patronage of the Ministry of Education and Merit and the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces. For years, too, continues the partnership with Confagricoltura in some territories – Alessandria, Asti, Bergamo, Brescia, Latina and Taranto - to tell the reality of enterprise also in the agricultural sector.
 
The international imprint of the event is confirmed, for the seventh consecutive year, by the patronage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. Since 2015, in fact, the SME day has also been held abroad, for the second year in Brazil in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy in São Paulo, and in particular in the USA where the Miami Scientific Italian Community organised a series of initiatives in collaboration with the Italian Embassy in Washington D.C. and its Consular Diplomatic Network, ABROAD TO - The Community of Italian Companies, the California Scientific Italian Community, ODLI - Organisation for the Development of Italian Studies and the Texas Scientific Italian Community. Also confirmed for this edition collaboration with the international representations of Confindustria Albania, Bulgaria and Serbia.
 
La new in this edition is theevent organised today by Piccola Industria Confindustria, Unione Industriali di Torino and Anitec-Assinform in the Piedmontese capital in collaboration with Rete Nazionale Licei Economici Sociali d'Italia. Here the topic of education and business culture is intertwined with one of the great challenges that Italian SMEs are facing, together with the entire European industry: the digital transition. What is a company and how it is changing, how AI is used and how work in companies is being transformed by artificial intelligence, what skills companies are looking for and how to meet the aspirations and needs of those born in the new millennium. These are the topics at the centre of the morning of reflection and discussion on enterprise, skills and artificial intelligence addressed to an audience of students from economic and social high schools. Some of them will be on stage to talk directly with entrepreneurs and the president of Piccola Industria Confindustria John Baronithe president of the Unione Industriali di Torino Marco Gayand the president of Anitec-Assinform Massimo Dal Checco.
 
" We have been losing industrial production for months. Now is the time to act: accelerate innovation and renew the Italian and European manufacturing model - explains John Baroni, President of the Small Industry of Confindustria. "The role of the younger generation is central in this game. And PMI DAY is increasingly a unique opportunity to make young people the protagonists of the future of our industry. We must bridge the digital gap and strengthen technical training, the Its, and foster the relationship between schools, companies, and universities. We must also push the 4+2 reform, and strengthen vocational training, which has been defunded in the budget law, we are talking about 50-55 million, which should be restored. Only in this way will we be able to really encourage the matching of labour supply and demand by changing the cultural paradigm that penalises our system'.
 
” SME DAY is an important moment to disseminate business culture to the younger generations and to make them understand the social role played by enterprises - highlights Filippo Sertorio President Piccola Industria Unione Industriali Torino. "To do this, more and more companies in Turin are active in the project: this year there are more than 70 and they will host around 2,800 young people. This is how we manage to 'build' awareness of their aspirations and the opportunities available to them, and we do this by showing plants, products and technologies. PMI DAY allows us to tell our experience, shows the difficulties of being an entrepreneur, and stimulates the students to broaden their vision, puts them in contact with the world of SMEs and makes them think about how to imagine their future“.

“The digital transition represents a challenge but above all an unprecedented opportunity for Italian SMEs. SME DAY 2024 is an opportunity to show how artificial intelligence and digital technologies can support growth, stimulate creativity and enhance the industrial know-how and skills of our companies. Young people are and will be protagonists in the world of work and we must commit ourselves to ensuring that they look to companies as places where they can realise their dreams by focusing on digital innovation ', says the president of Anitec-Assinform, Massimo Dal Checco.

The initiative, curated by Claudia Sartirani, national coordinator of SME Day Piccola Industria, with the support of a dedicated working group, is included in the 23rd Business Culture Week organised by Confindustria and in the European SME Week promoted by the European Commission. "I am particularly happy to see PMI DAY grow in numbers and quality, year after year, as well as for the favour with which the guiding theme of this edition was welcomed by all. 'Building' means giving life, giving shape. An uplifting and transversal message outside and inside the school, in the family and in the world of work. With PMI DAY we enter into dialogue with students, to make them understand that our companies are welcoming, innovative, passionate and ready to make a pact of trust for a future to be built together - stresses Sartirani.