On Friday 16 May, the award ceremony for the 12th edition of the 'Let's design a banknote' competition for schools, promoted by Banca d'Italia and the Ministry of Education and Merit, was held in Rome at the Carlo Azeglio Ciampi Conference Centre. The event was attended by Chiara Scotti, Deputy Governor of Banca d'Italia, who greeted the finalists and awarded prizes to the winning classes.
The theme chosen for the 12th edition of the Prize was 'Realizing your dreams, investing in yourself: economics at the service of young people'; it was chosen to make people reflect on a topic with a strong social value and for financial education and thus collect the emotions and thoughts of young people.
The 12th edition of the Prize saw the participation of 622 schools, including 12 Italian schools abroad.
As in previous years, the first selection phase was held at decentralized level, based on regional groups. Six juries at Banca d'Italia's branches in Trieste, Bergamo, Florence, Cagliari, Bari and Palermo examined the sketches submitted by the schools in their area and admitted 54 sketches (18 for each school level) to the next selection stage. The 54 regional finalist schools were awarded a prize of €2,000 for the support and development of educational activities.
The second selection phase was then assigned to a jury of experts from Banca d'Italia's Banknote Directorate, who examined the 54 sketches chosen by local juries and the 12 sketches from Italian schools abroad, and then chose the 9 finalist classes.
On Friday 16 May, the finalist classes presented their work to a final jury that declared the winners of the Prize. The 3 winners and 6 non-winning finalists received €10,000 and €2,500, respectively, to support their teaching activities.
The jury, chaired by Massimo Doria, Deputy Head of Banca d'Italia's Monetary Circulation Directorate General, was composed of Clara Rech, Head of the Ministry of Education and Merit's Directorate General for Students, Inclusion and School Guidance, Alessandra Cocozza, Head of Banca d'Italia's Currency Circulation Management Directorate, Maria Iride Vangelisti, Head of Banca d'Italia's Financial Education Directorate, and Valerio De Seta, Head Engraver at the Italian State Mint and Printing Institute's School of the Art of the Medal.
For primary schools, the prize was awarded to the drawing done by the 'Istituto Comprensivo III Briosco', Padua.
The prize for middle schools was awarded to the 'Istituto Comprensivo Bagnoli', San Pietro in Casale (Bologna).
For high schools, the prize was awarded to the drawing done by the 'Liceo Scientifico Enrico Fermi', Aversa (Caserta).
Two other prizes were also awarded this year: the prize reserved for Italian schools abroad, won by the sketch submitted by the 'Istituto Omnicomprensivo Paritario italiano Antonio Raimondi', Lima (Peru) , which received a prize of €2,500, and the 'Social' prize, awarded to the 'Scuola secondaria di primo grado Centro Provinciale Istruzione per Adulti 4', Legnano - Magenta, whose sketch won the public vote on Banca d'Italia's X profile among the first nine not selected for the final, and will become the cover of the next Call for the initiative for the 2025/2026 school year.
You can find the winning banknotes created by the students at the following links:
Winning sketch for primary schools
Winning sketch for middle schools
Winning sketch for high schools
