About me

Mini-bio

God has created me Italian, from Bologna, and decided my date of birth should be April 21st 1975 (the birthday of Rome). As far as that funny sillyness called Astrology is concerned, I am a “cuspid” (between Aries and Taurus), meaning that my sign is “undetermined”, and I am proud of it.

Since I was a little boy I wanted to go out as soon as possible, maybe more than others did, but having with all that parenthood I had some great times (thanks to all here). I don’t really remember when it all ended, but one day I just knew it was over. My only regret is that I never enjoyed the nursery school. Being there is something you should do at the end of your life, not at the beginning.

I wish to thank my teacher, Teresa Valoti, who was indeed very gifted for teaching us all the subjects – and that is not a small gift, right? – but also made me love knowledge and made us work so fast that, afterwards, studying has always been a piece of cake for me – or almost. This is where I met my dear friends Andrea Balistrieri, Antonio Capitani and Filippo Maria Conti. More due thanks here.

I went to high school at the ITC Tanari institute. In this school I met some of the most important people for me: don Lucio, the legendary vice-principal with a wig, who “imposed” my candidature as School representative and “suggested” we should start a school newspaper, two experiences that, as young as I was, allowed me to measure myself with the challenge of organizing “complex” activities and the leadership of a team; Riccardo Massari was my regular companion in dozens of endevours (but he always generously left to me the hard work parts!), Christian Naldi, who then became my main point of reference both as a human being and in my professional life; but also Ilaria Colleoni, Roberto Ruo… click here for the rest of this long list.

Meanwhile, I spent my time in the Parrish and YMCA. In both these places I found real people that have given me, through their words and their example, important teachings. I’ll mention here only the great (in all ways) don Gastone de Maria, a guide and a spiritual master unitll the end, my best friend, Paola Guarnieri, and Pierpaolo Viola, who later became …my brother All the rest of you are mentioned and thanked here.

After graduation I went to the University, as a student of Informatic Engineering (Thanks). To defend myself from the dullness and the alienation of this big Faculty, whose pricipals were clearly determined to hinder in all ways a student’s path towards a degree, not in way that – hopefully – would have made better the quality of the teaching and thus higher the severity of the exams, but only to leave in place and sometimes make worse the existing burocratic and physical obstacles (such as an insufficient audio amplification, areation, heating and air conditioning, and above all the rude and arrogant behaviour of many academics), in order to make clear to the student that he/she was only an “unconvenient appendix of the university system”. Given such bland conditions, I’ve serached for my inspiration in other places: in the Goliardic Excelsa Neptuni Balla (Thanks) and in the Impegno Universitario (Thanks), an apartitic student association, commited to honestly and transparently representing the students in the University organs and instituitions, quite the opposite of the doing of the everswinging representatives of the “Student Office” from Comunione e Liberazione. For eight months, during all my weekends, I’ve worked in the most famous take-away pizzeria in Bologna: Altero. From the period of my life spent at Engineering I can recall two names : Diego Zuccato and Alberto Stancari.

One day in summer 1996 I bought my first mobile phone and after reading the attached user guide I was left with the belief that the SMS (a service not yet available at the time) was destined to an important economical growth. Without any previous business exprience in my family and with only 150 euro of initial capital I started up an individual company, creating the first SMS-provider in Europe, SMS Italia – SMS.it.

In 1998, the Faculty of Mathematical Sciences started a degree in Informatics (or is it Computer Science?) (Thanks) so I applied for a transfer to that faculty, as I was attracted by a much younger and more stimulating ambient when compared to Enginneering, conditions that unfortunately could not last long enough, given the carelessness and the lack of initiative of those responsible; personally, I have an awful recollection of prof. Paolo Ciancarini – Head of the CS department and president of the CS degree council - my (absent) relator during my final exam, that made me pay with 9 points on my final grade because I refused to wait 6 more months for my degree after an error of the Student’s administration office. But the degree has made me finally free of being forced to face this squallid burocratic and non-meritocratic ambient. The bitter taste I feel in my mouth when thinking of all the energy wasted in such an ambient, energy that could be much better employed, is somehow sweetened recalling that the University often fails to recognize the Great Ones from History… Albert Einstein, for example, failed his Physics exam!

Obtaining this ephemeral academic recognition could not satisfy my desire for making more quality jumps, therefore I started a long path in order to give away my leadership of the company, moved as I am by my thirst for more experience and relations. This path was formally complete in September 2004, when I resigned as Administrator. After two years of external consultancy work as business developer, I again took the role of CEO of SMS.it, a much larger and much more structured company then it was when I left, whom I could bring new energy and new goals of company growth in both the national and international markets, with a new journey companion, Gianmauro Calafiore, who now joins me in the leadership of this business company.

Today, SMS.it is a wonderful – and expanding – team made of twenty twentyfive fabulous people, both collaborators and fulltime workers, with more than 3000 business clients, including some of the largest businesses in Italy, with the highest level of competence in the industry of outsource messaging on SMS channels, voice messagging, telephony and Internet, and with its income constantly growing at a double-digit rate. For all these accomplishments I have to thank Daniele Preda for his professional competence, organization capabilities, diplomatic ability, leadership capacity and realy tons of patience. Thanks to all others here.

For the first 30 years of my life I lived in the city and I have always wished very much to be able to escape, sooner or later, this noise pollution. Two years ago, thank God, this dream has become true: I live in a house on the top of a hill close to Bologna. And I’m in Heaven!

Speaking of Heaven, I almost forgot to thank God for giving me, allowing me and inspiring me all of this. For free. And there’s even more! The biggest of thanks, of course, goes to my parents, Alberto and Nediana, not only for bringing me into this world but also for all those things they’ve done afterwards, and because – I almost hate to admit it – they were right in a lot of things – but I never told them that. But then again, there were things I also was right about, and they never told me so

Dreams

Love & Hate

Thanks to

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Skype: emanuelepreda