On its journey towards the future, the Golinelli Foundation chooses a travel companion worthy of its ambitions: it is IIT, the Italian institute of technology, a public center for scientific research with a high technological content, controlled by a private law foundation. For a few months now, IIT has also been the protagonist after Expo, given that it was chosen for the Human Technopole Italy 2040 project which will be located in the former exhibition area and will make use of a loan of 150 million euros a year for ten years.
A broad-shouldered partner for a streamlined Foundation like that of the philanthropist Marino Golinelli and capable of looking far ahead: the partnership with IIT is in fact one of the first steps of Opus 2065, the program on teaching, research and innovative companies financed by the philanthropist for the next 50 years. The partnership between these two protagonists of our time could bring important innovations, the first is already in the pipeline and will be an information tool capable of putting order and establishing a hierarchy in the imposing mass of scientific communication, a database thanks to which companies, schools , universities can easily choose what they need.
“To give you an idea – says Andrea Zanotti, vice president of the Golinelli Foundation – let's think of the function that a kidney performs in the human body. Here we want to create a platform that filters information, not always of high quality, that we find by looking for the best and cutting-edge solutions in the various fields. Part of this information will be disclosed free of charge, part for a fee. In fact, the Foundation is philanthropic, Anglo-Saxon in style, but obviously has the objective of supporting itself.
Furthermore, the idea behind this project is once again the one that supports the entire Golinelli system: linking research and business and offering young people opportunities for knowledge and development, in a sustainable world and "IIT - recalls the number two of the Golinelli Foundation - is a fundamental player for innovation in Italy, the point of least distance between research and the market”.
The Foundation and IIT thus combine their skills, on the one hand training, relationships, dissemination skills, on the other research and innovation to create something new and immediately useful and usable.
“In today's world mental flexibility is needed – affirms the president Marino Golinelli – we need to be open to innovation, because conservatives will have no life in the future”. Among other things, the agreement comes three months after the inauguration of the Opificio, the citadel of knowledge in via NanniCosta in Bologna, where the Foundation has transferred its activities.
“An initial balance sheet – says the general manager Antonio Danieli – reveals truly important results. From 3 October to today, attendance at the Opificio has been 29, 16 children and 1.500 teachers from schools of all levels. To these numbers we must add 15 visitors to the "Degrees of Freedom" exhibition, which we brought to the museum of modern art in Bologna".
And the journey doesn't end there. The realization of Opus 2065 will also pass through the strengthening of the "Educare to educate" area, the national training program for school teachers. Objective: to train at least 2 teachers a year from all over Italy. An impressive commitment: "Over time - says Golinelli - all the teachers will pass through here, because we want to create a new school, not just a good school, and we will have important teaching support from the IIT".
The Opificio will also become a school for the school, integrating into the programs, becoming part of the school itself, thanks to a series of agreements and collaborations with the regions and the MIUR. In this context, the Opus Facere project will be launched for first and second grade high school students, which focuses on school-work alternation. The simple and correct idea is that we must "learn by doing" and 200 hours of scholastic commitment will be spent in the citadel of knowledge.
Finally, there will also be news for the Business Garden, the sector of the Foundation where the very young learn to believe in their ideas and transform them into products.
“The Foundation – announces Danieli – is studying the possibility of creating a fund to support new innovative entrepreneurship”. The Business Garden, from an informal school of education to entrepreneurial culture, will therefore become an institutional investor through an experimental path starting from 2017.
In this process of renewal, the Foundation will also involve the university, starting with that of Bologna "I am a teacher - underlines Zanotti - and I know that the university needs to change, because our universities have a medieval structure and the passage it happens slowly for today's world. Also in this context we want to find solutions and help those who have to offer programs to students. Those who leave university in 4 or 5 years will probably not know what to do with what they have learned today, we must prevent this risk and imagine the context in which our students will find themselves”.
In short, a few months have passed since October 3, from the birth of the Opificio and from the announcement of Opus 2065 and the first results can already be seen. “Today I can say that we have reached a milestone – concludes Golinelli – because the Foundation communicates on an equal footing with important interlocutors. We have the advantage of being lean and fast, which is why we can help them where they cannot move with equal agility. I was born poor and I'm happy to give back part of the luck I had in this way, it's not a very popular style in Italy, but it's mine".
