The dialogue between institutions and private companies is the foundation for building positive synergies and sharing a common vision for the future.
Christian Storci, president of the Atlantic Group, was invited to Brussels as a speaker at the Inspire Project event: a project aimed at promoting the development of skills and job opportunities in the digital and green sectors in EU and non-EU countries through partnerships based on migration and innovative mobility.
What is the Inspire Project?
“Incubating Effective and Sustainable Labour Mobility Systems and Skills Partnership: a multi-stakeholder approach”.
The Inspire project is an initiative designed to initiate a structured public-private dialogue on skills partnerships, aimed at incubating development programs among EU Member States and partner countries in Africa, the Western Balkans, and the Eastern Partnership region. Specifically, the project will bring together key public actors, European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), SMEs from partner countries, industrial groups, and EU and target region financial institutions to identify current and future labor sector needs, as well as propose market-driven solutions for skills improvement.
Atlantic Academy: a success story
The themes addressed in the panel were diverse: sustainability, job-seeking mobility, changing migration patterns, digital transformation…
Together with personalities from the business world, some successful case studies took center stage, where investment in training and innovation has led to significant growth both from a business and social perspective.
For the Atlantic Group, CEO Christian Storci presented Atlantic Academy: a training academy that focuses on personnel specialization, combining theory and practice in a controlled and safe environment and bringing students (of all ages, genders, and work backgrounds) closer to the world of work, bridging the gap between learning concepts and their real-world application.
Thanks to significant investments in state-of-the-art machinery dedicated exclusively to the Academy and a team of teachers and trainers, it continues to make a difference for many people, as well as for the company itself and the mechanical engineering sector of Modena and its province, which has seen a significant increase in specialized personnel.
“A major growth in 2021 led us to address a need: to fill the gap in specialized personnel and find the right people for open positions,” says Storci. “The production demand has increased drastically, leading to a situation of ‘skills shortages’ that we needed to overcome. The Academy has become a project that has engaged us in many ways but has also brought tangible results.”
Atlantic Academy was born and in a short time significantly differentiated itself from similar realities in terms of quality, purpose, means, and teaching methodology.
Atlantic Academy in 2023
In 2023, the Academy’s numbers included 1640 training hours, 213 trainees, including 106 women, 18 courses (including mechanical assembly, CNC machinery, testing, and technical drawing), a total of 41 hired by the AFT group with a 97% enrollment rate finding employment after completing the course.
The social impact of entities like the Academy is clear, starting from a business need and leading to an enrichment of the sector itself and greater job opportunities for people in precarious or unemployed situations.
A landscape that needs to change
In his speech, Storci brought forth not only an example but also described a social picture of the national production sector, which requires more workers (both high and low level), more training, but also new dynamics and stimuli.
“The opportunity we have given these people to acquire the skills to obtain secure employment has also led to a veritable ‘wave’ of positive online reviews: a sign that if the right learning and working conditions are offered to people, the desire, enthusiasm, and drive to seek employment grow. All of this has made us particularly proud.”
Thus, the Academy is a perfect example of the themes developed within the panel, capable of investing in resources but also leveraging results, advancing values, and changing the game: companies should not only strive to find talent but also invest in its growth.