‘The teams behind the apps’ series: meet ITER IDEA
'The teams behind the apps' is a series of videos made by the EU
Datathon [https://data.europa.eu/en/news/op.europa.eu/eudatathon]
finalists. Get to know the people and their proposals for apps over
nine episodes, once a week, in a run-up to the EU Open Data Days
[https://op.europa.eu/en/web/euopendatadays]. At the competition
finals in November, the teams will pitch their apps to the jury who
will select the winners.

In this sixth episode you get to meet ‘ITER IDEA
[https://twitter.com/IterIdea]’. They are competing with two other
teams in challenge 2: ‘An economy that works for people’. The
Italian-based team is currently building a portal that facilitates
women’s mobility. Using a series of European open data, the new
portal can provide relevant information for the relaunch of female
mobility in a tangible combination of educational and work synergies.
Also, the portal aims to highlight to its users some information
based on their background and preferences, matched with specific
European areas and regions. 

Guido Mazza [https://www.linkedin.com/in/guido-mazza-683728125/],
Matteo Carbone [https://www.linkedin.com/in/matteo-carbone/], and Sara
Baroni [https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-baroni-281aa717b/] form the
team behind ITER IDEA and they joined us for an interview in which we
talked about the app, the idea that led to its creation, and why they
decided to participate in the EU Datathon.

HOW ARE YOU GETTING ON WITH THE APP? WHAT’S THE STATUS?

The app development is proceeding smoothly, but there is a lot of work
to do; therefore, we aim to use all the time we have to achieve the
best result for the minimum viable product version.
During this journey, we analysed over 4 million rows coming from
mobilities records, along with other valuable data provided by
European portals. We also took the opportunity to create a dynamic
structure that is able to ingest new data more quickly and
straightforwardly. By completing these steps, we also got a clearer
perception of the total user base we could reach with our platform,
and this number inspired us to push on. In the most recent stage of
the project, while we are still processing new data sets, we are
focusing on improving the general user experience, ensuring that the
data shown is perceived as helpful and clear.

HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE IDEA FOR THIS APP?

Here at ITER IDEA, we truthfully believe that living abroad leads to
experiences that are essential for personal development, professional
advancement and life improvement. As a matter of fact, as students, we
ourselves had our life-changing semesters abroad! The idea for this
new platform formed almost 2 years ago while we were walking through
the streets of Rome. We tried to imagine ourselves as international
students or young professionals who might want (or need) to have the
experience of living in a city, and we started asking questions like
‘Do I have enough information about where and how to start? Why Rome
and not Milan? Would Carrara a better choice for me, given my
background, even though it’s less famous? ’The original idea was
challenged first by COVID-19 and then by Sara’s vision: both things
brought to the table the urge to support the next generation of female
workers, reflecting the current scenario and that to come. Young women
have experienced a drastic reduction in opportunities and, overall,
have been hit the hardest in terms of loss of employment. Fortunately,
we can see that more and more companies are finally committing to
providing equality in the workplace. These companies should therefore
be highlighted for the people searching for new life opportunities.
Obviously, we know that there is much more to do to create real change
than simply developing a web platform. Therefore, we are currently
sharing our vision with many organisations (traditional companies and
start-ups) and associations, combining their insights and feedback in
a shared goal that can extend our reciprocal reach. 

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO TAKE PART IN THE EU DATATHON?

Thanks to Europe Direct Emilia-Romagna (Bologna), we got to know about
the contest and its challenges. Since then, we have studied previous
projects in order to ensure that there isn’t already a similar
platform, and we also began snooping through data sets looking for
additional information. At the end of this process, we realised that
our proposal and vision fit smoothly within the category ‘An economy
that works for people’. What were the chances for such perfect
timing?
We couldn’t pass up the chance to work on and promote topics that
genuinely inspire us – it’s an important message of international
opportunity that we feel honoured to share with the world!

To find out more about ITER IDEA, watch their 1-minute video
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kN5yVfLLFYM]. 

Curious to learn more? Discover all teams and apps via the EU Datathon
website [https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eudatathon], watch their videos
on YouTube
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT5rARDev_rnik8jF6E8k5AjN5zeJmqXG],
and follow updates on Twitter [https://twitter.com/EU_opendata],
LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/data-europa-eu], and
Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/data.europa.eu], or via our
newsletter [https://data.europa.eu/en/newsletter]. 
 

Publication Date/Time
2021-10-22T11:30:00+00:00
Competing in the EU Datathon 2021 to facilitating women’s mobility
in Europe.