Francesco Caldarola
Francesco Caldarola was born in Trani in 1991. He obtained a Bachelor Degree in Marketing and Management from the University of Parma. He spent a year on Erasmus at the UAL in Almerìa (Spain) and then he took a gap year, grape harvesting in France, busking in Belgium, volunteering in Brazil and running a small bar in a hostel in Buenos Aires.
He then continued with his specialist studies in Edinburgh at Queen Margaret University where he obtained a Master's of Arts in Arts, Festivals and Cultural Management with a thesis on the sustainability of independent cultural centres. He then moved back to his native city where he founded UFFA (Urban Future For All) to accomplish some projects on urban regeneration, participatory design and civic engagement. He collaborates with numerous organizations in the field of cultural innovation and urban regeneration, including Farm Cultural Park, Fitzcarraldo Foundation, Casa Netural, CivicWise, and the Open Source School. He firmly believes in the potential of Southern Italy as a new hub of opportunities and a model of development. He dreams of a South as a permanent pole of attraction, as for its great tourist and cultural offer but also and above all as a destination of choice and good opportunity for personal and collective growth.
