Dear readers, mark your calendars! The weekend of November 29th and 30th, 2025, will see Sardinia, and its global community, spring into action with a unique initiative: Sardinia Unlocked. This event, promoted by NODI, is a powerful invitation to turn the desire to contribute into concrete action for the future of the Island.

What Exactly is Sardinia Unlocked?

Sardinia Unlocked is defined as a collective exercise of civic imagination. Its simplicity is radical: it aims to place people at the center to address some of the most urgent and complex challenges facing Sardinia.

This is not a convention, nor is it a festival. It is a choral, immersive, distributed, and connected experience, transforming spaces into hubs of vision and proposals for two days. Essentially, it functions as a "gym for the future" where participants genuinely contribute to imagining and building a more equitable, connected, innovative, inclusive, and habitable Sardinia.

The initiative is fueled by the energy of NODI and the ITACA podcast, which aim to connect the human and social capital of Sardinia, fostering a valuable international and intergenerational community. NODI's core mission is to enable such a community, promoting connections, continuous learning, and engagement through the exchange of experiences, talents, and resources. The foundation believes strongly that "the whole can be greater than the sum of its parts".

The Objective: From Nostalgia to Action

The name "Unlocked" signifies the central goal: to unlock the island’s latent energy. This includes freeing up talents, reactivating trust, and connecting generations and territories. The event is an invitation for everyone to move from nostalgia to action.

For two intensive days, participants will collaborate in heterogeneous teams on pan-regional challenges concerning essential issues like services, the environment, schooling, depopulation, work, and human capital. Unlike traditional hackathons, the goal is not to produce isolated business plans or projects, but to build broad-ranging proposals—such as public policies, programs, operational measures, or pilot actions—capable of having a collaborative, systemic, and regional impact.

Who Can Participate?

Sardinia Unlocked is for anyone who cares about the future of Sardinia and who refuses to be resigned. The goal is to bring together people with different generations, cultures, and professional backgrounds who are united by the desire to build together.

It welcomes those who have:

• Remained on the island and wish to build.
• Left but still wish to contribute.
• Returned with new energies and visions.
• Arrived in Sardinia, even temporarily, choosing it as their new home.

No specific qualifications or expertise are required. The key requirements are curiosity, openness, and the willingness to contribute. Participants must also be able to communicate (at least partly) in Italian, as proposals must be presented in Italian.

When and Where Does it Take Place?

The event spans two full days:

• Saturday, November 29th, 2025: from 9:00 AM to 7:30 PM (19:30).
• Sunday, November 30th, 2025: from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM (17:00).

Sardinia Unlocked is a global, diffused, and simultaneous initiative, taking place both in-person and online, across Sardinia and around the world.

In Sardinia, participants will gather in distributed physical hubs located throughout the territory (such as coworking spaces, schools, libraries, and civic or cultural centers). These local hubs are intended to reduce distances, making it easier for people to participate in a community setting. Every physical space will be interlinked via streaming with the others.

For those outside the Island, participation is possible either from an activated hub abroad (with London and Milan confirmed as early locations) or by participating online in a virtual team.

How to Register and Participate

Participation in Sardinia Unlocked is free of charge. However, registration implies a commitment to actively participate throughout the entire weekend of November 29th and 30th.

1. Team Formation: You participate in teams, typically consisting of 5 people.
2. Registration Status: While many individuals have already completed a pre-registration, the official registrations are open. If you have pre-registered, you will receive all relevant information via email.
3. Group or Individual Sign-up: You can register with a pre-formed team. If you sign up individually, you can indicate your location and the challenges that interest you. Organizers will then place you in a group, prioritizing assigning you to a nearby physical hub if you are in Sardinia, or a virtual team if you are outside the island and lack a nearby hub.
4. Confirmation: The official confirmation of your team and the specific physical hub (or online platform) will be sent out in early November.
5. Preparation: Participants are advised to bring a laptop or tablet, support materials (post-its, pens), headphones/earbuds for online sessions, and most importantly, energy and willingness to collaborate.

What Happens to the Proposals?

The event is designed as a starting point, not an endpoint. On the afternoon of Sunday, November 30th, the best proposals developed by the teams will be presented to a jury. This jury will include a mix of institutional, entrepreneurial, academic, and civic figures.

The main objective is to ensure that the strongest and most visionary proposals do not remain only on paper. They are intended to attract the interest of stakeholders and receive support to become concrete initiatives, potentially integrating into real regional policy pathways. All ideas and proposals generated, even those not selected for the final presentation, will be collected and valued as a collective heritage.

This is the moment to show that Sardinia is not isolated, but inhabited by a living network of people ready to respond when involved.