Tackling Europe's Skills Crisis

In this episode, we speak with Davide Dattoli, Founder and Executive Chairman of Talent Garden, about building one of Europe’s largest digital skills and EdTech platforms — from its launch in 2011 as a coworking experiment in Italy to a pan-European education group operating across 12 markets in Europe, Brazil, and Singapore. Today, Talent Garden trains 25,000 professionals and students annually, connects 4,500 startups and tech professionals, and attracts more than 500,000 campus visitors each year. We also discuss Davide’s role as Venture Founder at Italian Founders Fund, Italy’s founder-backed VC supporting pre-seed and seed startups, as well as his broader involvement in the European tech ecosystem. The conversation explores how the EdTech sector is evolving amid growing AI-driven learning investment (with roughly €52.7 million disclosed in European digital-skills funding rounds in 2025–2026), why physical learning communities still matter, and what “future-proof” skills really mean beyond the buzzwords.