Author: Ramey Brinkman

ACB Social Inclusion’s appraoch to migrant integration

ACB Social Inclusion sign outside the door

During my time in Italy, and Europe as a whole, I have been working on my undergraduate thesis through the Honors college. My research focused on refugee work: I was doing a comparative study of Ukrainian refugee integration in both Italy and the Czech Republic. I secured a grant through the Honors College, and was able to travel to the Czech Republic for my paper. Throughout my research, I interviewed many different organizations that worked with migrants and refugees, in both Italy and the Czech Republic. So last week, when we were able to visit ACB Social Inclusion, a group that works with migrants and refugees  (mainly Northern African and Banglsdeshian specifically) in Arezzo, I was familiar with how some of their programs worked.  This gave me a solid starting point when we were talking to Paola Miraglia, the director of ACB Social Inclusion, to understand how they worked and how they support their clients.

When we sat down with Paolo, she immediately started talking about the migrants that they help. Oftentimes, they come with very little money, and according to Paola, had already paid large sums of money to cross the sea to make it into Italy and Arezzo. When they arrive, they are often immediately greeted and taken into exploitive labor. “They are offered a package of everything: Sleep, food, and work,” she said. “Only that, obviously, it means working 14 hours without holidays, maybe with a contract for only two hours.” They come into Arezzo, and Italy as a whole, expecting to make a new living, but in reality, they are making very little money and not able to make a life for themselves.

When this first started to happen, Paola and ACB did not recognize what was happening. “At first, we didn’t even understand the structure,” Paola admitted. “Now we’ve retrained our staff to recognize it. Our entire intake process changed.” This was a change born out of necessity. They had to figure out new ways to make migrants feel comfortable within Italy and have a solid standard of living. It was an innovation created to help people. That kind of adaptability, responding to the needs of the people they help, is the kind of innovation that makes a lasting impact.

ACB Social Inclusion working with migrants, found on their website

ACB’s approach to this issue made me recognize what it meant for migrants to integrate into a society. Something I learned throughout my research this semester was what the process of migrant integration actually looked like. My research made me realize that integration isn’t just about living in a country and working 14 hours a day, but about their quality of life. Because ACB re-trained their staff for these matters, they were now able to effectively help migrants integrate. This understanding of integration helped me see how innovation can be about systems that revolve around empathy and cultural understanding.  This willingness to adapt not only created immediate support structures for migrants, but also created a new long-term vision for the organization. 

ACB’s innovation to adapt to the exploitation of migrants meant that their new model was able to provide assistance to migrants they hadn’t throughout before. “[We had to provide] legal assistance, assistance with housing or anything else,” Paola said. This shift to legal assistance and housing meant that migrants could start to feel comfortable in their new lives By retraining their staff to identify exploitation, and work with these migrants, ACB introduced legal assistance and housing support into their intake model, expanding beyond initial reception services. As a result, migrants who were able to be confident and stable with their lives. 

ACB Social Inclusion’s demonstrates that adaptability can transform migrant support from reception to integration By retraining staff to learn how to work with the exploitation of migrants, ACB not only addressed immediate concerns in their model but also laid foundations for long-term stability. This approach allowed migrants to form communities through ACB’s implementation of housing and community services, increasing their quality of life.  

“Behind every successful business is someone who made a courageous decision” quote hung at the front of Italpreziosi

When it comes to precious metals, gold is one of the most valuable ones out there. With value, however, risk can be very high. Italpreziosi, located in an industrial district within Arezzo, is one of the most innovative and forward thinking gold production companies out there. They use their innovation to take new risks and overcome any challenges that they may face. Some of these risks they take involve how profit off the gold they mine.

“We cannot wait until we receive the gold physically… we can have a big margin or a big loss. So we hedge the position and we have no exposure on the market for the fluctuation.”

Fortune can quickly shift in the gold market. Gold prices fluctuate quickly and interchangeably, meaning to invest in gold is to constantly take a risk. Italpreziosi manages this risk by selling freshly mined ore immediately to a company: Minimizing the exposure they have to volatile market swings. This is a typical response to market swings: sell before the prices change too much in one direction.

But risk is more than just typical corporate responses, and risk in the industry can’t be confined to this basic practice. Italpreziosi focuses on taking risks to build a sustainable company: One that is both environmentally friendly and ethically responsible. Italpreziosi co-owns mining companies to mine their ore, and they choose companies that must have a focus on sustainability, something that wasn’t common in this industry. This illustrates how they see risk not as something to merely avoid but as something to engage with intentionally, redefining industry norms in the process.

“Mining companies are one of our suppliers, and we carry out thorough assessments before accepting even a single gram of material from them. The assessment is very strict. The large majority of the opportunities that we have, we give up.”

This shows that Italpreziosi’s approach to sustainability is just as important as the gold itself. They could choose cheaper companies, maximizing their profit, but instead  they focus on sustainability and safe business practices to protect the countries where gold is mined, both the employees and the environment. Their ability to deny cheaper labor and practices is innovative in itself. It sets a new precedent within the industry, demonstrating that profitability and ethical responsibility don’t have to be mutually exclusive. By prioritizing long-term stability over short-term gains, Italpreziosi positions itself as a model for how modern companies can manage risk while driving meaningful, sustainable change.

 This decision to reject the majority of opportunities isn’t just about in the moment ethical standards–it’s a calculated long-term risk management strategy, protecting the company’s reputation and operational security.

Graph from Italpreziosi’s website showing their policy directives

“You don’t know how [the miners] work every day. So you have to make sure that you can actually be managing any potential risk related to mismanagement on the social and environmental side.”

There is, however, still risk in using third-parties within their business practices. Gold mining, and ore mining in general, has a big risk of human rights and environmental violations, and companies like Italpreziosi cannot afford to look the other way. Italpreziosi’s proactive strategy includes educating suppliers, enforcing traceability, and refusing to partner with those who cannot meet their standards.This highlights a critical tension in modern global industries: Trusting third-parties while knowing you can’t always fully control them. Italpreziosi’s emphasis on education and traceability is a pragmatic acknowledgment of that tension, and a smart way to reduce operational and reputational risk.

Graph from their website showing their environmental impact score

“If you don’t know what your impact is, you cannot do anything.”

In the constantly changing world of precious metals, risk is inevitable – but how a company chooses to approach risk with innovative solutions defines its long-term standard and character.  By embedding sustainability and ethics at the core of its operations, Italpreziosi has distinguished itself in an industry historically known for opacity and exploitation.

Infographic showcasing E Simple’s mission

 Failure is often seen as an endpoint over a means to be successful: Especially in the world of technology. Companies struggle to adapt after prolonged periods of failure. For E Simple, a company that operates in the challenging world of tech, failure has served as their means for innovation. The company has spent years perfecting their business model, while also failing countless times and changing their approach to the world of technology. Francesco Marcantoni, one of the Co-Founders of E Simple mentioned how failure was common for them, noting that “failure of our technology is something that we are used to unfortunately.”

E Simple started when the digital world was still rapidly evolving into what it is today. In 2007, E Simple started as an online marketplace, where they used 3D models to create a digital space. With an avatar, someone could walk up to a market and buy something from a store that E Simple would have contracted with. In 2007, this idea was revolutionary in the world of the internet. It was Amazon before Amazon fully existed. E Simple recognized they had the technology to create the digital marketplace through online payments and created something that was essentially a “one-stop-shop” for consumer goods.

“[We] had to connect to a bank system to retrieve the credit card payment,  we started to say, OK, we have the technology, we know how to do it, why now,” Marcantoni said. 

With the plan in place they launched their marketplace; five years before Amazon turned from a bookstore to a similar concept. However, even though the idea would catch on in the future, it was too early. The website ultimately failed and E Simple recognized that people weren’t ready for that sort of technology, and that the average consumer wasn’t ready for ecommerce. 

“I mean, at that moment 25 years ago, [people were using] websites like a business card, no one was using a website for work,” Marcantoni said. E Simple underscored how early misconceptions about the internet’s potential led to a failure in capturing widespread adoption. It was clear that even though they could see where technology was heading, the rest of the world couldn’t

This failure showed that even groundbreaking ideas may not catch on immediately. Still, E Simple continued to adapt. E Simple’s approach to innovation is characterized by failure and adaptability. Rather than letting these setbacks get to their vision, they forged ahead and kept driving new technology to the market. They adapted to the market trends and continued  their work. 

One of the ways that they did this was through their knowledge of creating 3D environments in a digital world. A new trend in technology involves augmented reality, or mixing reality and technology together. Essentially, the digital world and the real world are mixed into one. This can be seen through Apple Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 3, both which use cameras to project digital environments in the eyes of their user. E Simple has quickly adapted to this technology: They already had experience in 3D environments through their online marketplace, and were able to quickly shift to creating 3D environments through augmented reality. 

One of E Simple’s virtual reality headsets

E Simple is developing a digital experience of Pompeii. Someone can put on the Virtual Reality (VR) goggles and the VR goggles would project artifacts and information about Pompeii into the real world shown on a screen that the user could see. This type of technology is a growing trend in the augmented reality world, and E Simple was quickly able to shift and adapt to it. This seamless transition allowed them to stay competitive in a global market: Bringing new technology to Italy. Their previous innovation, and failure of that innovation, eventually led to success in their market

E Simple stands as a testament to the power of embracing failure. Even though they faced countless struggles since their beginnings in the early 2000s, they are still standing. The company’s journey through failures has culminated into them always looking for ways to innovate. As they look forward to the future, they remain committed to creating a digital experience that everyone can understand.