Modena also boasts a gaming valley revolving around a company set up in
2000. Today, Melazeta has 20 employees with a turnover of 1.5 million Euros and
a growth of +18 percent year on year. The objective is to communicate, promote
and train. That is how experience is combined with innovative technologies. For
FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo Colletti interviewed Lara Oliveti, co-founder and CEO at Melazeta
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Brave and tireless. Even capable of
changing the world. A tough lady. This is Sema. She has been the first heroine
created for children capable of helping them develop their alphabet and
calculation potential, instilling them with confidence. Her world is captivating:
thus Sema involves the youngest kids in a high-tech storytelling that enables
them to defeat the baddies, acquire new knowledge and share it with everyone.
Sema is a multimedia content drawn up for Kukua, an app created to improve the
lives of African people. A way to learn how to read and write. A pixel woman
defeating the plague that is affecting Africa: illiteracy. But, most of all,
Sema was created pixel after pixel to offer learning experiences. The
interactivity and innovation of Melazeta are what lies behind Sema. And this is
one of the many projects that the company is working on in all technological
sectors for all kinds of targets or brands. Team Melazeta is made up of
pioneers. It was the year 1998 and, while only the élite could access the
internet, there was somebody in Modena who was thinking big.
The history. Melazeta’s spark rose from
a varied team. Lara Oliveti studied Philosophy and Marcella Albiero studied
Mathematics with a base in programming. Then there are two creative minds. The
crazy idea of setting up this company linked with a digital project started to
become tangible during a previous job. “We had this healthy obsession with
involving young people in a more complete way via recreational animation. At
the time, we used Flash and other programming languages. Then the year 2000
came along, and with it the first larger orders. I’m thinking of those from the
Fiat training department. So we created courses with avatars for the training
of dealership sellers from scratch. There were very few of us doing such things
at the time, that’s why we were in demand. We had the option of exploring
opportunities with the big brands,” recalls Lara Oliveti, co-founder and CEO at
Melazeta. Today, the company has 20 employees with a turnover of 1.5
million Euros and a growth of +18 percent year on year. The digital world applied
with the recreational one thanks to a mix of programming and animation skills.
Melazeta - which in 2008 was purchased by the Banzai giant and is now part of
the HIND group - develops multi-platform projects and digital-engagement
solutions taking advantage of the universal language of gamification. The
objective is to communicate, promote and train. Thus experience is combined
with innovative technologies, always looking ahead: Multiverses, Augmented
Reality, Virtual Reality, Extended Reality and AI. The secret is creating
experiences that are immersive, interactive and customised. But let's
step back in time. Everything officially started in Modena in 2000. And not by
chance. Because this land is home to a generation of young comic and animation
creators: Guido De Maria, Ro Marcenaro, Paul Campani, Silver. The recreational
culture that pervades the team was also born in the city that boasts Play and
Modena Nerd. The company is currently located in the north of Modena, near
the motorway exit. It changed over the years because the business was first set
up in the garage of one of the partners. “We were born with the New Economy. We were
lucky when we started, because this world did not exist back then in Italy.
There was no one ahead of us and we had to make up all types of activities. I
remember our solicitor did not know how to draw up a contract for us and our
accountant had difficulty managing to identify our business,” stresses
Oliveti.
The gaming boom. “People do not like silence, so they'll keep talking to fill the void.
That is why we need to focus on their involvement.” This is what Emmet Shear
said, co-founder and CEO of Twitch, a platform born in the gaming world with
streamers and an audience that become protagonists. The figures now show
that the sector is a relevant one: 3.2 people in the world are gamers, with an
average age of 37. “But there’s gaming and gaming. There is a market of
consumers on different platforms producing sensational figures in Italy as
well. Compared with other Italian companies, the turnover is still low at 90
million, but it is growing. But gaming pervades
everything now. Even the metaverses intended as the new social platforms for
Gen Z,”
explains Oliveti. The team is
multidisciplinary and involves engineers, 3D modellists, illustrators,
mathematicians, game designers and humanists. “As a digital entrepreneur, I
have always looked ahead, sometimes even too early on. Now that ‘ahead’ is
inspired by and evolves a past that I have already lived through. The
difference is the speed with which the market plans and destroys. It’s no
longer years, sometimes everything happens in just a few months. My company
decided to focus on its vision and on a precise programme of growth in the name
of awareness,”
says Oliveti. Running, yet using the head and the heart. This is the winning
recipe to drawing up the pages of a future made up of games and participation.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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