Let's App

LetsApp is a mentoring programme developed by Samsung Electronics Italia (SEI), launched in February 2017 during Safer Internet Day, helping Italian high-school students and teachers engage with new technologies; it was integrated into the Ministry of Education's 'IoStudioLAB' creative-workshop pilot programme.

To build digital and soft skills among high-school students, aligned with labour-market trends, and to address youth unemployment and digital-skills gaps.

Phase 1 (Feb–Mar 2017): registration, digital lessons and LetsApp graduation certificates. Phase 2 (April–mid-May): graduated students formed teams, developed digital business ideas/apps, and submitted projects to a final Hackathon judged jointly by SEI's Corporate Citizenship team, Ministry of Education representatives, Accenture and La Fabbrica.

Phase 1 reached 30,000 registered students, 23,000 participants and 5,500 graduations, involving 1,500 teachers and 2,200 high schools (34% of Italy's total), with 300 lessons held for over 20,000 students. Phase 2 received 560 projects; winning apps included AGAty (an anxiety-support app by students from IIS JC Maxwell Institute, Nichelino) and Inclusive (a restaurant-menu reader for blind/partially-sighted users, by students from Alessandro Antonelli State Scientific High School, Novara).

SEI describes it as the first time a private company in Italy reached this many students in an education project, with a further boom in applications for the 2019 edition; a formal evaluation is underway but its findings will not be publicly disclosed.