SOCIAL NETWORKS AND MATHS: PAOLO’S PASSIONS POLIMI STUDENT WINS #TWITTER4UNI CONTEST
15 september 2015
A project on the Milanese transport company ATM’s customer care service on Twitter: this is the winning idea presented by Paolo Zappalà, student of the Laurea Triennale (three-year Bachelor of Science)degree course in Mathematical Engineering at the Politecnico, in partnership with a friend, for the #Twitter4Uni contest.
We set ourselves the tough challenge of proposing new additions to an important service in our city. We use public transport all the time to get around in Milan, and we’ve designed something that would simplify life for us and all ATM’s other users.
Twitter, the global platform making it possible to share information and ideas in real time, launched the #Twitter4Uni contest last March; the first initiative in Italy aimed at all university students aged 18 to 30 who have a personal Twitter account. The challenge to the students was to develop a project on the use of Twitter for the purposes of business, marketing or service.
An enthusiastic Paolo tells us:
"We worked intensively for two months on four ideas: a service enabling users to receive private messages containing personalised information on the line they use, a hashtag to flag up problems or breakdowns, a service for buying tickets through Twitter, and a hashtag for telling the stories on life in Milan on ATM vehicles"
The judges liked the idea, and Paolo was selected as the best candidate of all the participants, winning the final contest prize: a 6-month paid internship in the marketing department of Twitter Italia.
"Twitter is a young, dynamic and highly stimulating environment. Finally, I can combine my great love of social networks with my passion for mathematics, not only from a theoretical perspective but by applying it to understanding the dynamics of large organisations: This job enables me to carry out exactly this kind analysis of human behaviour. social networks make it possible to track users’ actions, and maths helps me to analyse big data using scientific criteria".
Alongside his new job, Paolo keeps busy with music. Indeed, he is a self-taught guitarist and pianist and, since last year, he has been running the morning programme “Good Morning Poli” on Poli.Radio.
What I’ve learned from this experience is that we’re surrounded by opportunities. We just have to seize and make the most of them, jumping in without being afraid to take risks. We must always believe in what we do and be determined to achieve our goals.
Paolo seized his opportunity and won a national contest. He is now finalising the details of his project which he will be presenting to ATM’s top management in the weeks to come.
