Communications Student Giacomo Sproccati Selected as Finalist in "Mazda Make Things Better Competition"

Giacomo Sproccati

Last December, a delegation of eleven JCU students participated in the Mazda “Make Things Better” competition during the Nobel Peace Prize Summit held in Rome. The student delegates submitted their proposals regarding new tools of advocacy. Professor Argentieri, head of the Guarini Institute for Public Affairs, supported the participants in their preparation for the Mazda Workshop.

Giacomo Sproccati, a Class of 2015 Communications student, proposed his idea to set up an online platform through which former and current high school students from the same institution can meet and interact. In the Anglo-Saxon world, such tools are quite common. In Italy however, it is a novel concept because the platform would be based on new privacy laws. Through a simplified and more evident “terms and conditions” section, users would be made more aware of how their personal information is used, which is far different from what happens today on the majority of social networks. Sproccati was inspired by Privacy, Surveillance, and Social Identity, a class he took last fall with Professor Simon Davies, in which the issue of privacy in contemporary society was thoroughly analyzed and discussed.

Sproccati’s project has been shortlisted along with four other projects, and the finalists will provide the committee with further details on the originality and impact of their plans by February 28th. In March the committee will announce the winner in Barcelona, Spain.

Study Communications in Rome at John Cabot University.