[Serena]

#12045

Good evening, everyone!

I would like to thank you all for your comments and suggestions for articles: I tried to read them all and to reply.

I would like to thank today especially Arianna Maschietto for her speech and for making me reflect on very important issues such as the importance of innovation and investment in it. I already knew Plug and Play, but after today I can say to know more this reality, such as its “triple soul” and the difference between accelerators and Startup incubators. The key concept of the seminar was disruption, in the sense of radical change that impacts people’s lives in a significant way. It was nice to retrace the history of innovation from the first industrial revolution, passing through the success of the great technological giants in the 70s, up to today to some “4.0” Startups that started from nothing but that in a very short time have revolutionized people’s lives.

In this difficult historical moment, it is necessary to make a reflection: the economic crisis that is now beginning  will hurt the companies? Will startups decrease? As Arianna said, many of the most famous Startups in the world, including Tesla, were born in times of economic crisis, so from this historical moment we could get something good and highly impacting on everyday life. At this point, I would like to submit to you my personal reflection on the correlation crisis-innovation, and on changes of scientific and technological paradigms. I quote Thomas Kuhn, a very important american physicist and philosopher. Paraphrasing his thought, Kuhn says two very important things:

1) Changes (technological and scientific) do not occur linearly and they are not distributed equally over time, but they occur “in leaps” and they are triggered by major events of particular significance, such as a war, an economic crisis or a terrorist attack.

2) The scientific process is divided into 6 phases: pre-paradigmatic period, paradigm acceptance, normal science, birth of anomalies, paradigm crisis and scientific revolution. Following a highly impacting event, the phase 5 occurs, because the science has not been able to face the changes taking place. At this moment, the last phase opens with
the discussion within the scientific community on the new paradigms to accept and what innovations to bring to society. The choice of paradigm is made on socio-psychological or pragmatic bases (young science or technology replace older ones). Once the crisis has been tackled, we will return to phase 1.

To learn more details about his thoughts, I leave you to a site:
https://www.filosofico.net/kuhnrivscientiff.htm

It was a pleasure for me to participate in the conferences and debates on this forum, good luck to everyone!

Serena

[Serena]

#12038

Hi everyone!

In response to @giorgiaamatemaggio, the confidence of citizens in the authorities and science is the great increase, but will this trend continue even after the crisis? For me, it depends. It depends on how the scientific community will continue to be present in people’s lives on a daily basis and the importance that the authorities will attach to the scientific community. In my opinion, a big change must be made to make ordinary citizens more interested in science: a change in scientific language. Science and the media system will have to work in synergy to reinvent the scientific language (which must be more understandable, simple but not simplistic) and find more engaging ways to share it with the public.

As @clearasperto has already said, personal data can be a very useful asset for the authorities to manage and prevent further spread of the virus, and therefore everyone should give their consent. In some Asian countries, such as China and South Korea, this practice is already underway and the results are great. However, there is a difference in mentality between Asians, who are more committed to the common good, and Europeans, who are generally more individualistic.

It will be very important to manage the post-epidemic not only from the point of view of scientific dissemination, but also from an economic point of view: all this aid that Italy is allocating, how will it be repaid? How long will it take? Will the state finance special economic recovery plans? So far we have focused on very short-term results, through the redundancy fund, but now we will have to start in the short and medium term.

See you soon!

[Serena]

#12031

Good Afternoon guys!

I thank @marco-canciani for the article Coronavirus: quando la fiducia diventa lo scopo. I risultati di uno studio del Cnr. I found it very interesting, especially with regard to the data that emerged from a Cnr survey that counted 4260 participants: a rather large representative sample! The survey wanted to investigate the relationship between the authorities and the trust of citizens: do we trust our institutions (government, Police, scientific community)? Are we willing to give up our freedom momentarily for the common good? We have said many times that this pandemic produces indications from the public authorities and also very restrictive regulations that condition the behaviour of each citizen. This change in behaviour can profoundly upset the lives of all of us and therefore also our priorities. Freedom or quarantine? Privacy or health? Safety distance or sharing moments?

The study in question wanted to consider the concept of authority as much as possible outside of a political or partisan context, just to strip it of a possible influence on the opinion of citizens of a more strictly political nature, and therefore not always objective. The data are interesting and extremely confident: over three quarters of Italians trust the institutions and 93% are willing to give up their freedom (many also privacy) in order to speed up the time out of this pandemic. I leave you with a question:

Is citizens’ trust in the authorities always strengthened during particularly intense crises?

See you soon

Serena

• This reply was modified 3 years, 5 months ago by Serena.

[Serena]

#11976

Good evening, everyone!

How are you all? I hope you’re all right.

I’d like to thank you all for sharing some very interesting articles on various topics. With this post, I would like to express my opinion about some articles, hot topics and propose you a video, even if it is a bit long I think it could be very interesting, especially because it talks about the epidemic in economic, psychological and statistical terms.

The location data of billions of Google users’ phones are the largest public dataset available to help health authorities assess whether people are complying with orders issued worldwide to curb the virus. While China, Singapore, South Korea and other countries have asked residents to use applications and other technologies to monitor their quarantine compliance, other countries, especially those in Europe, have decided to act differently, as privacy activists claim that such measures can compromise individual freedoms.

Squares, parks, beaches, shops, cinemas, theatres and museums have quickly emptied worldwide, although the emergency is not equal everywhere. The USA, Italy and Spain are the most affected countries and have therefore been locked by the authorities, while in many other countrues a total closure has not been ordered yet. The drop in the number of citizens on the streets is significant. The only country to have successfully contained the epidemic was South Korea, which has seen sales fall by only 19% (in the video that I will post below the experts explain the reasons).

Not to be overlooked in these days are also the psychological effects of quarantine: in Italy, but not only, there has been an increase in the use of psychotropic drugs and cases of domestic violence. In all this, psychologists try to lend their precious help 24h by telematic tools. When all this will end, many experts hypothesize an allocation of special funds for the treatment of psychological illnesses.

Facebook, which like Google has billions of users, has shared location data with non-governmental researchers who are producing reports similar to Google’s for authorities in several countries, although for now the results have not been released.

In the last few days, as far as Italy is concerned, there has been a tug-of-war between the President of the Government Giuseppe Conte and Attilio Fontana, governor of the Lombardy region, regarding the security measures allocated. Despite this, the latest data on deaths and hospitalisations seem to be slightly down: it is not yet known and quarantine will be extended further after 13 April.

Here is the video, in which a famous entrepreneur interviews two Italian statisticians living in London about the ways in which mathematical models could provide the solution to identify groups more prone to fall ill with COVID 19.

Thank you all, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow for the last videoconference.

 

[Serena]

#11907

Good morning, everybody!

How are you? I agree with everything that @fabianadurso said just now: Mr. Lotito’s speech was very inspiring and motivational for me; I really appreciated that he also talked about his university career, his passion for music and his travels around the world that made him brave and more aware of his desires. I think that in life you only have to do one thing: try!

Mr. Lotito’s choice not to move his company to Silicon Valley was risky, but with his talent and his collaborators’ resources, he showed everyone that a startup could grow in the world of technology and innovation even outside the United States. I believe that Italians have a lot to offer, and the opportunity to work in our beloved territory is a unique and rare opportunity.

I found the questions that were asked yesterday very interesting, the answers were sincere, punctual and full of positive suggestions that made me hope for a bright future for us young people, even in times of crisis.

In the end, to emerge in the field of innovation is not enough to have technical skills, but also a great imagination and a dream to pursue together with other people.

Thank you very much.
Serena

 

[Serena]

#11867

Hi, everybody! How are you?

I would like to thank you all for the articles that you proposed on this forum last week: I found them all very interesting and enlightening in many ways. I would like to dwell now on the one proposed by Marco Canciani.

The sentence that struck me the most was: “a pandemic doesn’t look like war: a war, when it ends, it’s really over, while a pandemic can have a “tail”. The risk is that this return to normal will be less rapid”.

I think it’s true. We are human beings and we are social animals, but I believe (and this is highlighted by many studies) that the sociality that will reaffirm will be, in some ways, different from the previous ones. In this last month we have learned to take advantage of the potential of the internet and technology; we have learned to keep in touch through the smartphone, to enjoy even a simple phone call. I hope that, when all this will be over, we won’t take our friends and family for granted anymore. Seeing us live will not be like before, it will be much better. I’ll want to give more importance to even the smallest things that before I almost took for granted.

A second reflection concerns all the services that were not born in these days, but that before few people used (or at least, in small cities). I am referring to services such as online shopping and food delivery services such as JustEat or those made available to individual activities, such as supermarkets, gastronomies and pizzerias. I believe that many people who have experienced these possibilities during quarantine will continue to use them even after the emergency is over.

Let’s move on to work and study issues. It may happen, for example, that a student can’t go to university if he’s sick, or that many commuters find a train that has been cancelled due to snow or other causes. In these cases, the possibility of working or taking lessons from home is very useful and meets our needs. Home working could also promote gender equality in the workplace, as working mothers could work from home for some periods to follow the growth of their children, but without giving up their careers.

Personally, I’m enjoying the online lessons, although, I have to tell the truth, I miss human contact a little bit, even though technology helps us to keep in touch. As a colleague  said a while ago, podcasts are very useful and I hope we can use them again in future, for example if a professor will be absent for a while.Podcasts can be paused and listened to several times. Pptx formats are great too, as they allow me to have slides and audio recording in a single file. Regarding live streaming lessons, they sometimes create some problems with the connection, but many times you can listen to them again the next day with a better quality.

I really like the dialogue that is being created here, it helps me not to lose the sense of being together.

See you on March 31st!

 

[Serena]

#11825

Good evening everyone!

I found today’s seminar very interesting; compared to the last lesson, the audio was perfect so I was able not to miss anything. I’m very interested in gender, diversity and integration issues, and after this afternoon, I can say that I know more. Even all the quensions were focused and interesting.

I also took notes on how a company  manages its budget and how it responds to the various problems that arise every day.

Going back to the posts of some of my colleagues, I think that quarantine is very hard to face, but it can also be a good opportunity to learn how to manage and organize ourselves and our routine at our best and to use some tools, such as videoconferences, that we will surely have the chance to use once we start working.

Good night, see you next seminar!

 

[Serena]

#11816

Hi!

My name is Serena and I’m currently on my first year of a master in CoD (digital communication). I majored in human sciences for communication at the University of Milan. Having said that, I live in a small town in Oltrepò. I’ve worked for three years for ENPA to take care of rascued cats and dogs, and I like to conduct personal research on a wide range of topics, such as sociology, psychology and mass cultural phenomena. I have also been attending a theatre school for three years to know myself better.

I would like to take part in the Silicon Valley Tour to explore many topics that interest me a lot, to see the United States for the first time and, why not, to improve my English!

 

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