From Oct. 28 to Oct. 30, 2015, I was invited as a mentorin the Connected Automobiles 2015 hackathon, at the Monza F1 Circuit. I brought maps, free software and more food for though in terms of open innovation, with a talk by the title “Have mapping device, will travel”.
Thanks to Innovability for their hospitality!
Thanks to Officina Turistica for hosting me and Federico Giussani for the shots.
In July I took part in the first meeting of the participatory process of the Grosseto Municipality for the definition of proposal for the use of the 400000 Euro deriving from the “tourist tax” (i.e. the small quota payed by tourists when they stay in Grosseto tourism facilities).
I published a summary of this event onAttivarti.org, since a strong interest was demonstrated for the BuioMetria Partecipativa project.
Having followed the first meeting in Roselle, I was re-invited in Roselle on Sep. 29 from 5PM to 7PM.
Phase two of the process consisted in a first screening of the ideas collected in July, narrowing down the bunch of to three ideas using four coloured stickers for each participat to express a preference. Each of the three “leading” ideas was assigned to a “preliminary design” table, and the participants were invited to join one of the tables to further discuss the idea.
BuioMetria Partecipativa received only two preferences in this step. Considering the context and looking at it on the bright side, I might say it was a success to even have one preference in addition to myself! But -like in all the fairy tales- I was distracted at some point and did not take note of who was the other BMP supporter.
To follow the rules of the game I thus parked the “night sky issue” and decided to join the table of the idea ranked as #2 (or #3, I don’t remember), i.e. the planning of a series of cultura events in the suburbs of Grosseto.
Here is my proposal in a nutshell:
Rough estimate on a first pass of calculations: 42768 Euro (to be tuned).
Other points of interest I found
…more news about the BuioMetria Partecipativa developments will follow!
I really liked Athens. I felt at home. The language is not so alien (for an Italian who studied latin and has a basic knowledge of the Greek alphabet from engineering studies). If you listen carefully, and look sharply things will tend to more or less make sense after few days. Many Greek girls have a lot of traits in common with Greek icons (Maria Callas, Vanna Barba). Many Greek guys remind me of friend living in Rome or South of it, or of Anthony Quinn.
I took it from there…between the Balkan Light conference, covered in a previous articole, the closing of the political campaign and the Sunday elections, and some interesting strolls in the Exarchia neighbourhood and the Zografou area.
My only regret is to miss some shots of the concert which happened in some square West of Monastiraki with four bands (free jazz, swing, rock-blues, and finally surf). It ended almost at 1AM just because the generator was out of fuel. Then again, I don’t regret too much, because if you don’t take pictures you can bettern enjoy the groove.
Oh, by the way, yes…the Parthenon was there too, but feeling at home I was kind of less attracted to the key tourist points.
Between September 16 and September 18 I attended the Sixth Balkan Light Conference in Athens, Greece, organized by the National Technical University of Athens, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, Education, and Religious Affairs, and the Hellenic Lighting Association.
Balkan Light is an event happening every three years, proposing the state of the art of research and best practice in the use of lighting in all of the Balkan region. The conference has a focus on this specific geographic area, but also sees the participation of experts from other countries. In this edition for example I met people from Germany, Italy, Thailand, Barbados.
I was invited by the organizing committee in the context of a session dedicated to light pollution. For this I proposed a talk with a joint overview by four non-governmental organizations and one research institute on artificial light at night in Italy.
The presentation was co-authored with Luciano Massetti from the CNR Biometeorology Institute (with whom I collaborate in the Loss of the Night Network), Mario di Sora from the Italian Stargazer Association (UAI), Fabio Falchi from Cielobuio, and Leopoldo Dalla Gassa from Veneto Stellato.
These are not all the stakeholders that I have been interacting in Italy on night sky quality issues, and in the presentations I made a point of reminding this. Simply, they represent those with whom in over seven years we were able, from the BuioMetria Partecipativa project, to build some form of collaboration. I also made a call to others, both nationally and internationally, to make contact with us and understand if/how we can relate for ongoing and future initiatives.
The conference was for me also a great opportunity to learn more about lighting technologies applied to anything: from interior design, to ancient monuments or caves, and recreation, reinforcing my current understanding of many issues related to artificial light, not just at night.
Last but not least: I had yet another confirmation that Italy, for reasons I am still investigating, has something (positive) that other countries do not. It appears that in ancient Greece, folks were building lamps for indoor lighting. However, the really elegant models of lamps were imported from Italy. Not that I needed to come to Balkan Light to learn that Italian design is really cool, but it’s interesting to see how a fact finds additional evidence in contexts where you wouldn’t expect it!
The next Balkan Light conference will be in Bulgaria in 2018. It would be nice to be there with some of the folks I met in Athens, presenting the accomplishments we will have obtained from the seeds we planted in Greece. Que sera, sera!
In the meantime, let me remind you of upcoming events where we can be in touch, should you be interested in learning more about these topics (or about participatory methods in general):
Also, with Attivarti.org I am co-organizing together with SAIT Toscana a one-day symposium on light in October 29, Leghorn, at the Natural History Museum in Leghorn, The event will host presentations by Luciano Massetti and Federico Giussani.
Yeserday I had the onus and bonus of having the first talk at the opening ceremony of the Ninth Parco Nord Milano Biodiversity Festival.
The location was the brand new Interactive Cinema Museum in Milano, viale Fulvio Testi 121.
I spent some twenty years of my life in Milano, in various phases, and I’ve been roaming in the city quite a lot, not to mention the m(‘)appare project.
Now that I am spending more time in hamlets on the Tuscan hills, than in urban sprawls, I’m starting to lose my bearings.
I was confusing the old tobacco factory with the building at the Viale Zara/viale Marche intersection, so I thought I could walk from the bus 90 stop in viale Zara. After 30 seconds I considered asking three bus drivers who were having a smoke between shifts. They kindly explained that my destination was in fact two miles, rather than 200 yards, away, and invited my to take the new Lilac metro line.
I finally found the museum. After some greetings, the event started with the institutional remarks by the Park Management and the mayors of the three municipalities related to the park (Cormano, Bresso, and Sesto S. Giovanni). Then we were off with the expert talks.
I spoke about “measuring night sky quality, and sharing its value“, which in Italian could be also said as “BuioMetria Partecipativa”, but sound a bit more institutional.
In addition to the usual bird’s eye view on light, night sky, and citizen science activities, yesterday was a good opportunity to share the case of lighting revamping in Milano, with the quasi-instantaneous transition to LED in most of the city, driven by the EXPO works. This case is very well shown from International Space Station imagery, and was recently advertised by Alejandro Sanchez, an astronmer with whom we collaborate in the Loss of the Night Network. From the Loss of the Night Network I also recalled the recent recommendations about the use of light at night , with a focus on direction, blue componet of light, colour temperature, and illuminance levels.
The session was moderated by Marina Carpineti and Mario Zannoni, University of Milano.
It was a pleasant afternoon, where I learned some new things, refreshed some old ones, and provided some insight to others on the topice I was presenting.
The closing was with an aperitivo based on “wilderness food”. A very, very milanese situation ;)
Unico peccato: non aver potuto esplorare meglio il museo, almeno negli scorci.
After the aperitivo, the Museum was showing “Il ragazzo invisibile”. However I was up and about since the break of dawn and with no siesta. Considering two heavy days ahead at Parco Nord, for the BuioMetria Partecipativa demonstrations, I considered making my way back to base camp, not without taking a stroll at l’Isola, where all the story started in 2006.
Waiting for the official photo coverage, here is a shot with the Mayor of Cormano greeting the audience with the backdrop of the last slide of my presentation, with the acknowledgments, the map of night sky quality, contact information, a panoramic view of the Farma Valley and the pointing arrow saying “we are here”.
On September 4, 2015, I organized a sort of “underground” workshop following the request by De’ Soda Sisters, a band of young ladies from the Livorno/Leghorn area to learn more about Ottava Rima, which I have been following quite closely since 2006.
The tutors were Elino Rossi, Ferando Tizzi and Nicolino Grassi, three of the poets currently active in Southern Tuscany. Participants were all coming from areas North of the poets (Cecina and further up, reaching Pisa).
After a first “formal” (but not so formal) session, things escalated, with the arrival of Niccolino, his “combat improvisation”, often recalling topics from economics and politics. Given also his long-running experience of rhyming with Elino and Fernando, they delivered a unique experience to the partcipants.
The workshop eventually morphed into a dinner, and this second stage of the event gradually saw also other participants stand up and give their part of improvisation: Benedetta and Veronica with some De’ Soda Sisters repertoire, Giovanni with tales from tradition, Niccolino with a bunch of jokes and anecdotes, Erlese with some hot ‘nduja and everybody singing along the lines of “Bevi ‘l vino di Scansano” (“Drink the wine from Scansano”), with copies of the lyrics brough by Elino.
The final result is yet to be clarified, but the evening was great, and for once I was the one with the shortest trip back home. The interim result: this was definitely a “sharing” moment, which I trust will bring to build more things together.
Some videos will be published as soon as some “blitz post-production” has been taken care of
I attended a one-day “think tank” organized by the Tuscan chapter of the National Association of Italian Municipalities on the topic of innovation.
Various sub-sections were available, related to some of the hot topics on innovation (smart cities, big data, future-proof systems, funding etc.). I decided to attend the session on education.
The attendees were invited to provide their inputs on three topics:
I provided my inputs based on my experience since 1994 in training, mentoring, staff management (in a corporate environment) and other stories which involved understanding how to build teams to work on projects and in settings which can be extremely dynamic.
The Italian version of the post contains a few more details – if you are interested, please write and I’ll be glad to provide more information.
In one of the two venues selected for Italy in this global event.
