A free APP created by father and daughter to connect Italians abroad, all over the world, to give a service and help compatriots who do not speak the main foreign languages.
It's called Italia Near, and was created by a 26-year-old Italian computer scientist, Virginia, who has been working for two years in Dublin for a tech company.
"Actually in this case the technician is my father - explains Virginia, introducing Italia Near - I deal mainly with marketing. Our goal is to create a useful service for all Italians abroad. The app provides them with a network of reference points (pharmacies, stores, doctors' offices, agencies, hotels, restaurants) where there is at least one person who speaks our language".
ItaliaNear provides two ways of access: as USER and as CONTACT: access as contact allows shopkeepers, artisans and professionals to register and keep their references updated, while access as user allows all Italians abroad to identify ItaliaNear contacts according to their type and location.  
The ItaliaNear application is free and advantageous for everyone: both for users, who thus overcome the language barrier, and for contacts, who make their business more welcoming and cosmopolitan.
"As you can imagine - explains Virginia - being a craft project, the application was born with simple and reduced functionality, also because we wanted to test its potential. Today, almost two months after its publication on Google play and Apple Store, we already have more than three and a half thousand installations and almost a thousand contacts registered all over the world. An unexpected success that encourages us to continue and invest resources to improve the application, making it faster and more efficient".