Naples is known worldwide for a myriad of reasons: its cuisine, its music, the sea, its folklore. In short, when thinking of the Neapolitan city, a long list of cultural elements immediately comes to mind, elements we now define with the expression “soft power”. Among these, however, it’s rare to imagine the tech industry.

Yet, over the past ten years, a small Italian Silicon Valley has developed right around the Neapolitan capital, thanks especially to the Apple Developer Academy, inaugurated in 2016 in collaboration with the Federico II University. The academy is not located in the historic center but in San Giovanni a Teduccio, a neighborhood that for years had a reputation as the “Bronx of Naples.”