Interview with Niccolò Armellini, CEO of Voltar

Interview with Niccolò Armellini, CEO of Voltar, the platform designed for the management and organization of Associations in the field of relief and emergencies

The local Associations are an important resource for the social and cultural aspect of our country, especially when dealing with relief and emergency management. Precisely because of the crucial nature of the services they often perform, the Associations must be supported, helped and incurred by any means possible, not only economic. 

This challenge has been accepted by Voltar, an innovative and dynamic company with a precise mission: to simplify and optimize the internal management of rescue associations through technology and digitisation. 

Voltar is an all-in-one platform that allows the organization of associated volunteers and of logistics; the simplification of rescue activities; the management of personnel and resources. 

Organization of volunteers and logistics

This aspect is curated through:

• digitalization of the seat,

possibility to manage in a single platform, all the administrative, accounting and logistic activities.

• management of transports,

Vehicle routing monitoring, tracking of movements/supplies/maintenance.

• rescue tracking

real-time monitoring of 118 interventions, health transport and mechanical interventions.

Simplification of relief activities

This aspect is cured through: 

• a register of external services 

registration, management and monitoring of bookings of external rescue services.

• monitoring of welfare lists 

ability to access the updated personal data of people on priority lists.

• security and privacy

management of the safety of the data of the rescuers and the patients in compliance with the norms and regulations in force.

Personnel and Resources Management

This aspect is curated through: 

• calculation of rescue workers hours

calculation and record of rescuers’ hours in order to better organize shifts and work missions.

• coordination of teams

organization of the groups through the creation of Teams and the visualization of the assigned activities for each of them.

• control of warehouses 

cataloguing of the technical material with relative loading and unloading of goods.

In addition to the platform, Voltar also provides the Associations with an app, through which you can control the rescue activities in real time and communicate with the team of volunteers quickly and directly. 

If you want to know more, read the interview with Niccolò Armellini, CEO of Voltar.

Hi Niccolò, nice to meet you and thank you for your time. Voltar: tell us what it is about .

 ANSWER 1: 

Voltar is a cloud manager that digitizes rescue associations. Building on my experience as a Red Cross volunteer, together with Voltar co-founder Alessandro, we have developed a platform that simplifies the work of rescuers and volunteers. Through the mobile application, it is possible to manage the attendence of volunteers and monitor rescue vehicles.

How and when was Voltar’s idea born?

Voltar officially became an innovative startup in June 2021 but in reality the idea was born much earlier. As a computer scientist I have always had a great passion for technology and innovation and when the opportunity presented itself to become something concrete I involved my friend Alessandro Sala in the project. As a volunteer at the Italian Red Cross Committee of Groane for more than 4 years, I personally experience the problems of the relief association related to digitization. Together with Alessandro, I worked on the development of a platform with a single mission: to simplify the work of rescuers, volunteers and rescue associations thanks to technology. Voltar was designed to simplify the work of all,  because if you work better, you can fully live the experience of helping people. 

How can an association request Voltar’s services? 

A rescue association interested in Voltar can already see the cloud management directly with us. In a first meeting, also virtual, we show the DEMO of Voltar in order to clarify all the functionality and potentiality of the platform. If the association wants to use our management, we simply provide them with access credentials, without the need to install the software.  Our assistance is continuous for every problem or need of use, as well as our support to be able to switch into a secure and digitalized management of the data of the association.  On the application side you can download the Android or IOS version of Voltar on your mobile phone and from there manage autonomously some data about presences and tracking of vehicles.  We will also make the website of the rescue associations for free if they buy our service.

Digitization is now a determining factor at several levels. At what point do you think we are in Italy? 

In Italy we still have a long way to go in the field of digitisation. There are areas more in difficulty than others but surely the subject is shared and discussed. However, what emerges is precisely the need to build a Digital Culture in the third sector. 

At present, being aware of the need to digitize your organization does not necessarily mean that you already have a Digital Culture capable of concretely implementing innovative technological processes. Building it requires commitment, constancy and training. Dedicating time and energy to involving people in the digitisation process presents limits and potential for a sector that has been severely put to the test by the recent pandemic. 

In this scenario, employees, collaborators and volunteers make the difference in the path to innovation because they are the first to believe that investing in innovative strategy, training and technology can be the answer to improve the quality of rescue associations. 

Giving life to a more “human” technology designed to help people in their activities and respecting the skills of all operators, from the volunteer to the administrative director, is part of the technological revolution that we are experiencing in many sectors. 

How did you launch your project? Did you use crowdfunding campaigns?

operaLogica, software Factory by Garbagnate Milanese supported us in the launch of the project. As an innovative startup we are part of their startup ecosystem that aims to work together with ideas and technological projects that improve people’s lives. In our case, we wanted to communicate the technological value of Voltar for the volunteer and the rescuer. We then built online and offline communication with them and began to make known the potential of Voltar. Currently we created our website http://www.voltar.it and our presence on the social channels Facebook and Linkedin. Together with operaLogica, we share objectives and goals in order to continue this path towards innovation together.

Curiosity: among the Associations that use Voltar, is there one in particular to which you are most “attached”? 

Surely the association in which I am a volunteer: Red Cross of Garbagnate Committee of Groane. They were the first to believe in the project and to want to invest their time in trying it and giving me useful suggestions and ideas to make it really useful and functional. I can say that we have received a great deal of positive feedback which has given us the impetus to continue on this path. Now we just have to continue to make Voltar known to other associations in this area but the more beautiful thing remains having presented the management to my friends and colleagues in the association and then being able to count on their valuable support in these hard months of work. 

Credits: 

https://www.voltar.it/

Credits: 

https://www.voltar.it/