HUB spa. The revolution of the three "Cs" at Next of the Republic of Innovators.

But how to organize yourself? We didn't just want a cultural relaunch project, therefore an Association, not even a project of exclusive social development, therefore not even a Cooperative was the right path, we certainly weren't looking for a classic company that was created to make profit, but at the same time we wanted our project to support itself, without public contributions, without the help of interested politicians or patrons.

We wanted to put one together physical and virtual space, using the Internet, a space that was an attractor and, at the same time, a multiplier of opportunities, basically a HUB of people, relationships and ideas, for all those who were looking for a job, had a business idea, wanted a place to also promote art and culture.

We then wanted to tell all the young people university students that it is possible to start up, realize your own idea and your own business, not just be professionals, designers or employees for other people's businesses. We wanted to tell young people that after graduation they can also become entrepreneurs, to create not only the project but also a real "business", in the sense of a series of unpredictable actions for an ambitious objective that can change men's lifestyle habits.

In short, we wanted a project that fully embraced the new paradigm ofsocial innovation.

In the meantime, while we were defining the project, looking for the most suitable legal form and thinking about finding funds and human resources, the Internet opened up new opportunities:

- The crowdsourcing that is, the possibility of sharing ideas and designing remotely using different skills;

- The crowdfunding that is, the opportunity to seek small financing spread through platforms that could allow us to find the economic capital necessary to launch our startup;

- The coworking that is, the new way of working that is developing in many countries around the world and in many Italian cities, which could financially support the initiative.

We called her the three o'clock revolution C, Crowdsourcing, Crowdfunding and Coworking and thus the HUB spa project was born, the first joint-stock company for social innovation, based on crowdsourcing of 70 members who have different skills, also do different jobs (professionals, businesses, teachers, creatives, researchers, students) each of whom has invested a equal share of 3,000 euros forming a social capital of approximately 200,000 euros in a form that anticipated in 2012 theequity crowdfunding.

We thought the company could support itself by promoting the coworking with beyond 60 shared workstations. On the coworking we would like to add a few words because in Naples it is still practically absent, except for a few very rare and small exceptions.

The coworking represents one new organization, one new mental approach to work, which no longer consists of looking for work, waiting for work but in creation of new work through collaboration, sharing and contamination of everyone's ideas and experiences coworker.

We are accustomed, even here in Naples, to the associated firm to divide the expenses. But this practice has nothing of the coworking which instead profoundly changes the traditional working practices of our country based mainly on single-purpose places and skills. Coworking, on the other hand, is based on sharing spaces, equipment, staff, moments of socialization and leisure, on quality and on dedication, exchanging skills and becoming acquainted with disciplines and topics other than individual specializations.

The coworking eliminates the concept of unemployment, that is, that somewhat distressing time that passes between the end of studies and entry into the so-called world of work, or between one completed work experience and the arrival of another. Coworking places fill that transition time turning it into one space of opportunity.

HUB spa has chosen a difficult territory to experience all this, the suburbs north of Naples and south of Caserta, the headquarters is in Giugliano in Campania, heart of the Land of Fires, in an important historic building recovered from abandonment, with 800 m2 of space available for coworking stations, meetings, social events, exhibitions.

In just over a year we have organized many initiatives and various services: in addition to networking among hundreds of contacts in different countries, and at coworking stations, we host the FabLab Naples by offering free courses on digital prototyping and Arduino, we have a joint crowdfunding platform, together with DeRev, for design, social innovation and startups, we also offer services business clinic to local companies and we have one HUB STARTUP SCHOOL for the acceleration of business projects.

We're working on one too HUB spinoff on a fascinating topic, that of augmented reality with wearable devices. In this regard, we were awarded, as lead partner together with the Second University of Naples, Federico II, the CNR cybernetics and two other companies from Campania, a substantial loan of over 1,000,000 euros, on the MIUR PON call for support for Start Ups. The project, called CHEESE, aims to design a prototype of a viewer, similar to Google glasses, to be used in museum settings.

We know that the challenge is difficult and we think of need all of you, protagonists and enthusiasts of innovation but, above all, eager to make a contribution for the economic and social relaunch of our region and our country. Some of you have already come to visit us, making an important contribution to the initiative, Riccardo Luna has been close to us on several occasions.

We think that together with you, in these difficult places, we are a little gods Pioneers, in the most frequent etymological sense of the word, or pioneers like anticipators, precursors of the times, innovators because coworking, startups, crowdfunding, augmented reality represent new ways in work, business, the economy and technology.

But we also like the other etymology: Pioneers also means men and women specialized in "fortification works"; in this sense the projects of today's Next, of which HUB spa is just an example, but also the many that we don't know about, are born in a delicate historical moment and some of them in difficult territories, in this perspective then together with you we are pioneers in the sense that we have the objective of fortifying the cultural, economic and social fabric of our country.

(from Intervention to Next – The Republic of Innovators – as part of the days of the Republic of Ideas of Naples, 2015)