The consul general of the United States, Philip T. Reeker, on February 17^th visited Politecnico of Turin and SITI (Institute for the Region and Innovation). He also met Bernardino Chiaia, vice-director for internationalisation and Romano Borchiellini, vicedirector for the logistics and president of SITI.   During this meeting the engineer Sergio Olivero introduced the project X-Team.

The consul looked interested in increasing his knowledge of this initiative, promoted by Politecnico of Turin, University of Ca’ Foscari (Venice), IUAV, SITI and CORILA. This initiative wants to educate some experts in saving of the cultural heritage from attacks or natural events and from the illegal trade of art works.

The main objective is the education of experts ins saving the cultural heritage in critical situations caused by wars or natural disasters, through an approach that makes them able to start development processes, whose aim is to create job places for highly qualified people: in this way they will give all those people who are fleeing now the prospect of “coming back home with dignity”.

The people to educate will be chosen among the students and researchers of countries who are in conflict and among the officials of the cultural system. In particular, they will make an effort also to involve refuges, even those on the edge of country which are in crisis: in fact, they are a real “deposit of competences” that could help rebuilding their home countries.

X-Team will also promote the creation of highly specialised local agencies: through this project they will create a coordination unit in Italy and “Satellite Centres” all around Europe, which will collaborate with local partners, spread the know-how and act in loco through chains of innovative services for the safety, the protection and the management of the cultural heritage, with, as a consequence, more job places for qualified people.

Which is the best way to involve the young in speeches about mafia and illegality? Terre di Musica has found an attractive way to let everybody know about this positive event: the confiscation of resources from mafia.

In Via Verdi 9, Turin, in Aula Magna at Cavallerizza, on Februart 20^th 2017 at 4 p.m., there will be a meeting about music, cinema, literature and art, which are the means necessary for the project of cultural requalification of the resources confiscated from mafia.

Main actors at this meeting are the inventor of this project (Salvatore De Siena, founder of the band Il Parto delle Nuvole Pesanti) and a series of spokesmen of the institutions involved in it: Rocco Sciarrone (University of Turin, Cultural Studies, Politics and Society), Alessandro Cobianchi, Arci Nazionale, Maria Josè Fava (LIBERA Piemonte) Piero Ferrante (“Narcomafie”), Marco Maccarone (Cascina Caccia, San Sebastiano Po, Turin).

This meeting is organised by the University of Humanistic Studies, coordinated by Alberto Rizzuti and it is open to anybody. With the sponsorship and the support of the University of Turin and ARCI, Terre di Musica, organised in collaboration with LIBERA, is a trip around Italy, whose best moments are noted in a book and a movie by Zona: here you can find the historical, social and cultural information about these resources and also the experience of the characters.

http://www.unito.it/sites/default/files/terre_di_musica.pdf

On Tuesday 14^th February at 10.45 a.m., the mayor Chiara Appendino and Gianmaria Ajani, dean of the University of Turin, are signing and showing the press a dialogue between the City of Turin and its University about the carrying out and the testing of projects whose objectives is to reorganise projects aiming at reorganise offices and city services.

Valter Cantino, director of the Management University, and Emilio Agagliati, director of the staff of the City of Turin will take part in this meeting with the journalists.

The new edition of the project “Innovation for change” took place at CERN of Geneva on February 1^st. It has been promoted by the Scuola di alta formazione e management of Turin (SAFM – School of high education and management), by Politecnico di Torino and by Ideasquare, a specialised centre that hosts innovation-related events at CERN (Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire).

50 young students at MBA and SAFM and graduate students of Politecnico take part in this project, that is an education course in the scientific/engineering field. In the next months they’re going to work in Geneva and in Turin; they’re divided into different groups, but they’re brought together by the same objective: to use the most advanced technologies in order to help face societal challenges like the question about food and health.

Thanks to the work of the next months we will get 8 new ideas of business; each one of them will be competitive on the market, since they offer innovative products and services invented just to face the societal challenges in the context of the industrial and international needs. The students will be supported by those ones who studied at SAFM and who are entrepreneurs now, or work in big companies or as researchers at CERN or at Politecnico, looking for advanced tools and technological solutions which are ready to be used and creating prototypes ready to be developed on the market.

This project will be also supported by institutions and agencies that showed the students which are the challenges they have to focus on in order to find feasible solutions: the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, the UN development organization, the AIUC (Onlus organization), Casillo Group, ENEL, ENI and Humanitas.

At the end of this project (that will be in June) the students have the opportunity to show the results of their work to companies and investors during a public meeting in Turin, in which the heads of the supporting institutes will take part, too.

The number of Turinese students who want to study all around Europe is higher and higher: there has been a record in the numbers of appliances for the Erasmus project. Barcelona and Berlin are the most attracting destinations; Spain is the most attractive country, but also northern countries and U.K. are very often students destinations, even if with these countries it has been more difficult to establish exchange pacts since before the Brexit.

At Politecnico the Erasmus applications have reached the upper limit of 1800 as usual, while the number applications for the projects outside E.U. has redoubled and amounted to 500-600, also thanks to focused funds. These numbers have increased thanks to the politics of the University, which decided to raise its economic support for people at the lowest income brackets: it redoubled since the last year and is now 600 Euro per month.

Also the number of foreign students in the city has increased: last year 579 and this year 630 students, above all from Spain, have chosen the University of Turin. In regards to this point, the University seat of Via Po has some difficulties: according to the Osservatorio regionale per l’università (Regional Observatory of University) this seat is below the national average of international students it attracts. At the Politecnico the situation is much more better: it may be more attractive thanks to the higher number of courses in English.

Yesterday January 30^th 2017 the multi-year Partnership that allows and regulates important collaborations between the University of Turin and SMAT (Water services society of Turin).

This partnership will be focused mostly on those sectors linked with water services like the production and distribution of drinkable water, the recycling of wastes through sewers and the sewage disposal through purification plants.

Taking part in international projects means also an advantage in the placement politics of both agencies. SMAT and the University of Turin want to act together in the creation of partnership networks at an international level and in the organization of institutional events to promote the scientific, technologic and business culture at a local level.

This partnership is one of the initiatives about the environment organized by the University of Turin, which has dealt with the Rapporto di sostenibilità (Report about sustainability) about wastes, water and energy since 2014 and with researches and formative activities about environmental objectives the University is following for the sustainable development and the management of the local area.

The partnership between the two agencies will help focus on environmental questions and develop the broadcasting of this information to the citizens.

35 students of the University of Turin are taking part in the national project “Promemoria_Auschwitz”: they’re leaving to Krakow and to the old concentration camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

This project is supported by the University of Turin and more than 300 students of all the courses had applied.

UniTo is the first Italian university that, in partnership with collettivo Studenti Indipendenti  (Indipendent students organization) and l’Istituto piemontese per la storia della Resistenza e della società contemporanea “Giorgio Agosti” (Institute for the History of the Resistance and the History of the Contemporary Italian Society), supports this trip, not only from an economic point of view, but also through courses of study and research.

“A trip is a shared moment”, so Elena Bisacca, vice president of Deina Torino – “This is a trip through which everybody goes back to their own life looking at it in a different way. It is important to understand how to tell and make understand this experience to the local people that supported this trip”.

The Open Day ESCP Europe is scheduled for Thursday, January 19, 2017, from 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm.

The event will give the opportunity to potential students to discover something more about ESCP Europe, which is the oldest business school in the world, it was founded in 1819. With its six campuses, based in Berlin, London, Madrid, Paris, Turin and Warsaw, the school has a European identity with a global perspective. The Italian campus of ESCP Europe was founded in Turin in 2004. It offers a wide range of intercultural and multi-campus courses: first level degrees, 5-years degrees, Masters, MBA and Executive education.

During the Open Day each candidate will have the opportunity to speak individually with staff, professors and alumni, and to discover all the courses of the Campus of Turin.

The event is free, but reservation is recommended via email to: info.it@escpeurope.eu

Like every year in January, Creative Days IED Torino are about to start. The Istituto Europeo di Design offers a great chance to students , who are attending the 4th and 5th year of high school and are interested in creative professions, to find the best course of study for their passions. The first appointments will take place from January 2017: they will present every single IED Torino course in Design, Fashion and Visual Arts and make creative aspirants work in designer clothes!

During Creative Days, IED organises free workshops with a limited access, which allow students to work in a team building a real project in the areas of interest, under the guidance of professors and experts in the field. At the end of the workshop, IED Turin will also release a certificate of participation for school credits.

The first workshops will be those of Visual Arts.

The Photography workshop will be inaugurated on 31st January 2017, followed by those of Graphic Design, Illustration and Animation and Advertising Communication in February and April.

It will be then the turn of the laboratories of the School of Design, which in February will explore the world of Interior, Product Designers or Transportation.

As for Fashion field there will be workshops in Fashion Design and Jewellery Design and Accessories in April.

For those who want a 360 ° panorama on the world of design, creativity and design methodology, IED will also organise Design Thinking workshops.

All activities will take place at IED Torino, in Via San Quintino 39, from 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm.

If you want to attend the Creative Days IED TURIN, you must reserve your place by a web registration.