Daniele Manni

Daniele teaches computer science in the small city of Lecce in the south of Italy. He encourages creative thinking in his classes instead of following the traditional ‘passive’ Italian learning style with a myopic focus on syllabus and schedule. He sets 25-30% of his lesson time aside to engage his students in long-term projects from a variety of topics, such as social inclusion, pollution and start-ups. A decade ago he even co-founded a start-up incubator and accelerator at his school.

Over the years his students have earned a significant number of awards, such as medals from the President of Italy. Daniele ensures that these projects get covered in the press, in order to demonstrate to the Italian teaching profession the success of his alternative approach.