My name is Francesca Di Cuonzo, I come from Italy and I am 20 years old.

On the 5th of September I have participated to the shadowing day during a meeting in Brussels concerning the preparation of an important European SME proposal called SMALLER.

I have followed all day long Mrs. Caterina Berbenni-Rehm, Chief Executive Officer of the SME Company FUTUREtec, which is leading the submission of SMALLER.

At the beginning I was a bit scared about the fact that I would understand nothing of the project, but Mrs. Berbenni-Rehm gave me guidelines and explained me what the project is about. 

This day was definitely important to understand the complexity of European projects and the importance of ICT.

The meeting was structured so that every partner of the consortium could explain and present his work package. Mrs. Berbenni-Rehm moderated the meeting and I found very interesting to see a woman to coordinate 17 partners during the day.

In my opinion this is a hard work for many reasons: first of all because of the need to be diplomatic to reach an agreement with everybody, criticizing or improving some parts of the work without upsetting anybody. Secondly, a woman must have character and a lot of experience in this field and thirdly, I think it is very important to be really keen on this job.

I believe that women in the ICT sector can give an important contribution in this field because of their different way of thinking.

My reflections on the shadowing day are positive; I had the opportunity of spending a very special day, observing how a woman skilled in the ICT field works.

I found it very constructive and also challenging to participate on this experience.