Press release no. 3 - Milan, September 10, 2008
The conference Women & Technologies: research and innovation organized by Didael and the European Parliament (Milan Office) concluded at the Milan Convention Centre. The 41 speakers, prominent figures working within Universities, Companies, and Public Administration worldwide, highlighted in front of an international audience of over 400 people the contribution of women as creators and producers of technologies, protagonists of research and innovation, and not just mere "consumers". The topics discussed in depth were: Women and ICT in Europe; Art and affective computing; and Interaction and dialogue in the Communities of the future Web; Innovation in companies and institutions.
Numerous institutional recognitions: the High Patronage of the Presidency of the Republic; the endorsements of Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission for Information Society and Media, the Ministry of Education, University and Research, the Minister for Public Administration and Innovation, the Minister for Equal Opportunities, the Ministry of Economy and Finance - State Accounting General, the Lombardy Region, the Chamber of Commerce of Crotone. Messages of appreciation have been received from Mariastella Gelmini, Minister of Education, University and Research, from Simonetta Matone, Chief of Staff of the Ministry for Equal Opportunities, from Diana Bracco, President of the Special Project for Research and Innovation and Expo 2015 of Confindustria. Alberto Mattioli, Vice President of the Province of Milan, Marco Accornero, member of the chamber council representing Carlo Sangalli, President of the Chamber of Commerce of Milan, and European parliamentarians Pia Locatelli, Cristiana Muscardini, and Patrizia Toia have participated.
Gianna Martinengo, creator and chairperson, concluded the conference: "It is necessary to design infrastructures capable of incorporating people with all their social and collaborative dimensions into the production cycle. For this reason, in technology research, it is important to integrate, according to what is defined as a 'holistic approach', the contribution of a plurality of disciplines; not only logic and mathematics, but also psychology, social sciences, cognitive sciences, pedagogy, anthropology, literature. True innovation comes from here, from the ability to include different points of view to bring out new questions and new solutions. Women, carriers of a vision always attentive to the person and the 'humanistic' components of every problem, can provide an original contribution in this sense, and the interventions of the speakers of Women&Technologies have been able to demonstrate it."
At the end of the work, the prize was awarded The Technovisionaries® 2008 , conferred by a jury of experts and opinion leaders in the economic and technological fields, to Fiorella Operto (Robotics School Association, Genoa), for her commitment to involving young women in science and technology, with particular reference to the field of robotics.
Ample visibility has been guaranteed to the institutions and companies that supported the initiative; significant interventions and contributions from speakers that have attracted the attention of the press as evidenced by more than 200 articles published and by 342,334 visits and 28,330 visitors from 50 nations registered to date as access to the web 2.0 portal ( www.womentech.info ) created to fuel word of mouth ( buzz ) about the conference.
The portal will continue to be active and will become the focal point of an open discussion on the themes of the conference, collecting and spreading the contributions of all those interested; in this way it will constitute an important element of continuity in view of a hoped-for "edition 2009" of Women&Technologies.
