(Secondary, Higher Level)

Since 1996 I have been working for the company Villa delle Ginestre S.r.l. a family business with my husband where I am:

▪ Responsible for coordinating and optimizing all the company’s operational and design activities, to make them more effective and functional to the corporate objectives

▪ Supervision and coordination of activities

▪ Management and leadership responsibility of the Company

▪ Contact person for relations with entities in relation to the existing service contract

▪ Responsible for special projects and the organization of events and training activities.

Beyond this core enterprise, I have implemented different drives of development of innovation, with the constitution of:

• Maia production S.r.l. (as creator of the short film “By Your Side”)
• Meti solutions S.r.l. (start-up)
• IAMHERO, innovative start-up, with a seat in Milan.

(Business,

Entrepreneurial)

Since 2017, always within the Industrials’ Union, I’m involved as responsible of the scientific projects in the health sector.

In 2019 I founded the “Maia Production” Ltd., and in this company I am the sole administrator as creator of the short film “By Your Side”.

In 2018 I founded another  start-up, “Meti Solutions”, and in October 2019 I founded an innovative start-up called “IAMHERO”.

Since 2008 I am editor of the magazine “DiamoCi voce” the newspaper was born from a need to give voice to those who do not have the opportunity to do so, like people with disabilities, women victims of violence, children with eating disorders etc.

I was also a founding member of the dinAmiche Cultural Association, at present I am the President and this association links 40 entrepreneurs, and since last year also a group of 5 entrepreneurs in Milan joined dinAmiche, with the commitment of implementing together some projects (Film forum, the charity nights, and other solidarity interventions), and a founding member of the social cooperative Terre di Vita, with the responsibility of organizing and managing a listening desk and for a project to combat violence against women.

I have also registered the following patents:

(2017) Adjustable seat combined with an interactive visual interface to perform exercises for enabling purposes.

(2018) Headgear equipped with sensors to detect the emotional state of the wearer.

I live and work in suburban neighbourhoods, north-east of Naples (Ponticelli), and I started from the fact that the children came to me for rehabilitation therapies with tears, the parents often do not have the motivation to treat the children, and therefore there it was the need to create more welcoming spaces, attractive for the little ones to maximize the time of therapy and reduce the resistance of the young patients to “hospital” environments. In addition, the marriage with an orthopaedist and our common passion for our studies and professions made us start this family business. Our business is fundamentally based on attention to the care of human relationships.

Products/services?

For Psychotherapy treatments not authorized by the S.S.N. are provided privately. The most common pathologies are: mental retardation, motor disabilities of neurological and orthopaedic origin, chromosomal syndromes, encephalic damage, cognitive, emotional and behavioural disorders, neuropsychological disorders, sensory and neurosensory disorders, communication disorders, learning disorders.

The Centre provides pursuant to L.11 / 84 ex. Art 26 L. 833/78 ° for outpatient and home care the following services:

1. Physiokinesi therapy;
2. Respiratory / neuro-motor / cardiology therapy;
3. Neuro-psychomotricity;
4. Speech therapy;
5. Occupational Therapy (individual and group);
6. Neuropsychological rehabilitation (individual and family psychotherapy);
7. Half-boarding school.

The use of robots for therapies with children are giving very important results, because through play, being immersed in a colourful and well-kept environment, the rehabilitation experience is not associated with medical supervision, but with play and fun.

A key factor are also our workers, who are extraordinary people able to assist patients in a superlative way. For years we have created a real network of professionals who act to support people, accepting their needs and responding in a flexible and dynamic to their needs. At our facility operate: Physiokinesi therapists, speech therapists, orthopaedists, psychologists, psychotherapists, neurologists, socio-health workers.

Link the interest of children immediately, maximizing the therapy.

Amaze adults with special effects.

Maintaining high therapist motivation, with continuous updating of their professional competences.

Social/financial/tech issues?

Another struggle was the search for the right consultants (experts and technical) and partnerships (financial and ownership), as was the search for some loans, calls for proposals which are not always successful, even for trivial reasons.

To continuously pay attention on the workers employed in our company, and in order to improve the competences and the professional profiles in our field, I proposed and awarded an Erasmus+ project called “WorkABLE: developing competences of adult educators to support the employment of persons with mental disabilities”, lasting two years, a strategic partnerships for innovation in the field of adult education. The idea was born from the observation of the lack of a specific professional profile (“Job Coach”) in the Italian and European panorama. The project aims to define, implement and provide training for adult education professionals in order to transmit to them the necessary skills for the complete accompaniment in the world of work of people affected by intellectual disabilities and autism spectrum disorders. The pilot version of the course will be tested by the project partners themselves (training and job placement centres specializing in the treatment of disability from Romania, Slovenia, Cyprus and Italy), for the subsequent delivery to the public.

Linked to my registered patents, and to contribute to the financial coverage of the new investments, I conceived and coordinated the R&D project called “BRAVO – BEYOND THE TREATMENT OF THE ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER, funded (position no. 415) out of Axis I funds, Action 1.1.3 PON Enterprises and competitiveness 2014 – 2020 referred to in the Decree of the Ministry of Economic Development 1 June 2016 “Horizon 2020 – PON 2014/2020”.

The project aims to create an advanced therapeutic environment, created by means of immersive virtual reality, capable of helping young patients with ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and improving their health conditions.

Another project conceived and coordinated is called AVATEA Advanced adaptive virtual technologies e-health. Funded from the funds of the priority axis 1 POR Campania FESR 2014/2020 Research and Innovation. The Avatea project aims at an adjustable seat combined with a visual interface for performing exercises for enabling and rehabilitative purposes. It is a complete rehabilitation support system, highly immersive and responsive, capable of configuring itself mechanically to support specific therapeutic sessions for the various levels of deficit, even serious ones, to support the treatment process of all the cases that fall within the within the DCD (Developmental Coordination Disorder).

For their tech business?

For themselves?

As in the social-health work the risk of burn-out is high, to cope with this awareness, I am introducing Mindfulness Yoga practice also amongst our workers (I am also a practitioner of Mindfulness Yoga, which is a mode of practice of Hatha Yoga that pays particular attention to mindfulness, awareness of breathing and openness of the heart.)

Contact details

[email protected] 

Website:

http://www.villadelleginestre.com/websiteeng/