Yesterday morning at the end of a short ceremony, Brunetta Schiaffonati, Alberto Cocchi's wife, presented the diplomas and the scholarships to Singh Kalaambeer, a 5th year student of the G. Marconi Higher Institute of Industrial Education in Piacenza, and to Mauro Pierrotti, a 4th year student of the IIS Cassata Gattapone in Gubbio, specializing in agriculture.
In addition to the total financial endowment of € 5,000.00 per year made available by the Heirs Dr. Alberto Cocchi, the prize provides a period of training at dealers of agricultural machinery for a total of 200 hours.
There was great satisfaction of the awarded students for the experience and his wife - Brunetta - who pointed out that "we have realized a dream of Alberto”. Present in the room were some of the teachers of the awarded children and a significant number of their classmates.
Gianni di Nardo, secretary general of Federacma, recalled with emotion the time spent with Alberto in designing a prize that would encourage teaching agricultural mechanics, mechatronics, computer science, etc. in a world now hungry for new roles with high skills in new technologies.
The wife went on to announce that "the budget at the moment ensures the continuation of the award for 5 years" and therefore the call for applications for the 2021-2022 school year will be issued very shortly.
Alberto Cocchi, who had spent his working career in the agricultural machinery distribution sector with managerial roles, had always paid great attention to the world of dealers and to the dynamics with the world of manufacturers. The same passion that, with great intensity, he later turned towards identifying and training talented young people. In recent years, having become a journalist, he had tried to fill the information gap that existed on the dynamics of distribution by dealing with subjects little known to the general public. He joined the association of agricultural machinery distributors - UNACMA - and created the newsletter Unacma News.
His initiatives, still active today, are TAO - Tractor Agricultural Observatory, an opportunity for dialogue "in neutral territory" between manufacturers, distributors and users; Agrilabor and Mecc@griJobs, initiatives aimed at bringing young students closer to the world of work in machine workshops and agricultural machinery dealers.