“All Roads Depart from Rome” - FS’ challenge for social sustainability

Social exclusion is an emergency that needs to be addressed, now more so than ever. The number of people in a state of fragility is increasing. Indeed, it is estimated that each day, around 400 people seek shelter around Rome’s Termini and Tiburtina stations alone.

Since 2002, the FS Group has implemented – in cooperation with ANCI (the National Association of Italian Municipalities) and third sector associations – interventions to support the most delicate amongst us. Thanks to this collaboration, a network of 18 Help Centres is in operation in FS premises in the main Italian stations, along with 5 Shelters in the cities of Rome and Milan. The Group is committed to continuous improvement and believes that innovation is an important lever to making its Social Impact even more attentive and a better support to people in delicate situations.

As hubs of universal community, stations end up including all the diversity that each person lives and expresses in their daily life, able to be proposed as new academies of sociality that can integrate the needs of travellers, of those who utilise the services at the Station, within the social fabric in which they are interwoven.

In this context, the FS Group – with the support of LVenture Group and the participation of qualified partners such as Joule (the Eni school for enterprise), Elis and Binario95 together with the National Observatory of Solidarity in Italian stations – has decided to promote the Open Innovation "Tutte le strade partono da Roma" (“All Roads Depart from Rome”), to identify and develop innovative projects aimed at improving the provision of services and modes of assistance with a view to the social integration of people living in a state of fragility.

Specifically, the FS Group is looking for new proposals and solutions for:

• Expanding the modalities of social reintegration of people in a state of fragility;
• Improving the usability of the Spaces and Assistance Services already operating in the Rome’s Termini and Tiburtina station areas;
• Developing plans for raising community awareness on issues of social fragility and initiatives for communication and cultural change that focus on the daily reality of people experiencing such difficulties;
• Developing new activities or modalities/proposals that integrate environmental and social sustainability within the spaces of Rome’s Termini and Tiburtina Stations;           
• Further enriching the offering of services and means of shelter for people in delicate situations.

The challenge, which will be published on 31 May and managed via the InnoStation platform will close at 6:00 pm on 20 July.

The winning projects will have access to:

• A free incubation course, managed by the LVenture Group, at the FS’ Innovation Hub at Termini Station in Rome;
• The possibility to test and validate the proposed solution at Rome’s Termini Station;
• The possibility, at the end of the incubation process, to conduct a Proof of Concept (PoC) with Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane in order to validate the solution and possibly adopt it at other Group stations (establishing a commercial partnership with FS).