Contributors

Born in Cagliari in 1983, Alessandro Aresu is a geopolitical analyst who graduated in Philosophy of Law from the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. Since 2005 he has served as scientific adviser to Limes — Italy’s foremost publication on geopolitics — and also writes for Le Grand Continent, Aspenia, Gnosis and numerous newspapers. Over the course of his career he has provided consultancy and led initiatives for leading institutions, including the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Economy, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti and the Italian Space Agency. He has also collaborated with international organisations such as Eurasia Group and the Rann Strategy Group. His intellectual work focuses on the relationship between politics, economics and technology, with particular attention to global strategic supply chains, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and space geopolitics. Among his most significant volumes are L’interesse nazionale. La bussola dell’Italia (il Mulino, 2018, with Luca Gori); Le potenze del capitalismo politico. Stati Uniti e Cina (La Nave di Teseo, 2020); I cancelli del cielo. Economia e politica della grande corsa allo spazio 1950–2050 (Luiss University Press, 2022, with Raffaele Mauro); Il dominio del XXI secolo. Cina, Stati Uniti e la guerra invisibile sulla tecnologia (Feltrinelli, 2022); Geopolitica dell’intelligenza artificiale (Feltrinelli, 2024), a finalist for the inaugural Strega Prize for Non-Fiction; and La Cina ha vinto (2025). A lecturer at numerous elite training institutions, he is a member of the scientific committee of the Fondazione Feltrinelli and of the board of directors of the Fondazione Praexidia.

Full Professor of Environmental Technological Design at the Department of Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture (PDTA) of the Faculty of Architecture at Sapienza University of Rome, where she holds the following roles: Director of the Second-Level Master’s Programme (ETD) in Environmental Technological Design – Green Building / Architectural and Urban Regeneration / Green-Blue Infrastructure (since 2024); Coordinator of the Environmental Technological Design curriculum within the PhD Programme in Planning, Design and Technology of Architecture (since 2024); Member of the second Master’s Degree Course “ACT: Enhancement and Management of Minor Historic Centres. Environment–Culture–Territory, Integrated Actions” (2011–present); and involved with Horizon 2020 (2013–present).

Organiser and Scientific Coordinator of international conferences, she has been a speaker at 150 international conferences and congresses since 1993. She has been a member of the steering committee of In/Arch – National Institute of Architecture since 2022. For her design and experimental design work at national and international level, she has received 31 awards and honours. She is the author of 280 publications — including books, articles in scientific journals, and book chapters — among them 14 monographs and 30 articles in Class A journals, as well as 5 edited academic volumes and 5 special issues of scientific journals as guest editor.

An expert in adult pedagogy, Gestalt counsellor and coach, Barbara Binelli works with organisations and entrepreneurs to facilitate the development of mindful relationships conducive to wellbeing and results. She integrates philosophical study with contemplative, somatic and artistic practices (Danza sensibile®).

An art historian and teacher of art history, Valentina Borgnini has spent more than twenty years studying and promoting the artistic and monumental heritage of Umbria. She is the author of a detailed study on the history of the San Francesco al Prato complex in Perugia, whose lengthy restoration and reopening as an auditorium she followed closely. She has also curated the narrative of the history of the Cappella degli Oddi, including the virtual repositioning of Raphael’s Coronation of the Virgin, together with various exhibition and educational projects in collaboration with museums and schools across Umbria. She is currently working on a digital twin of the monumental complex and its historical and artistic heritage.

Architect, designer and curator, and partner of Stefano Boeri until 2017 and co-founder of SBA China. Since 2011 he has led, together with Marco Brega, the practice DONTSTOP Architettura, with which he has realised projects in Italy and abroad, notably “Abitare in Maggiolina”, the new Master Plan for the Municipality of Pordenone, and the restyling works at the San Siro Stadium and the Inter and Milan sports centres. His work sits at the intersection of architecture, design, research and international cooperation, with particular attention to relations between Europe and Asia, which he promotes as creative director of the Sino European Innovation Institute and through curating international programmes, including Across Chinese Cities at the Venice Architecture Biennale and XPort at Suzhou Design Week. In 2022 the practice was transformed into Dontstop Architettura srl, broadening its corporate structure and joining Progetto CMR International, a leading Italian integrated design group. Since 2016 he has been founder and creative director of the Sino European Innovation Institute in Milan, and co-curator of the research programme Across Chinese Cities, with which he has taken part in the Collateral Events of the Venice Architecture Biennale. He has held workshops and lectures at international institutions such as the AA School in London, Graz University of Technology and the Politecnico di Milano, combining his design practice with a long-standing editorial collaboration with magazines such as Domus and Abitare. He teaches on the “Architecture CO2=0” (Architectural Carbon Neutral Balance) master’s programme at IUAV, Venice.

An engineer with a PhD in Architectural and Urban Composition, Barbara Cadeddu works in the fields of strategic planning, local development, and the design, programming and management of complex interventions funded by European, national and regional funds. Her work integrates urban design, social innovation and public policy, with particular attention to territorial regeneration processes, place-based strategies and participatory methodologies. She has held institutional and strategic consultancy positions, including Councillor for Strategic Planning and Community Programming of the Municipality of Cagliari (2013–2016), consultant to the Tourism Councillor of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia (2019–2020), and consultant to KPMG Advisory S.p.A. for technical assistance to the Autonomous Region of Sardinia in implementing the Regional ESF+ Programme 2021–2027 (2023–2024). She currently coordinates the drafting of the Strategic Plan for the Province of Sulcis Iglesiente, is a consultant to the Fondazione Cammino Minerario di Santa Barbara for the development and implementation of the Integrated Territorial Investment under the ERDF Regional Programme Sardinia 2021–2027, and to the Union of Municipalities of Barbagia, Fonni and Orani for the development of project sheets relating to the National Strategy for Inner Areas 2021–2027. Alongside her professional activity, she has held an academic post as a contract professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the University of Cagliari, where she taught and conducted research from 2007 to 2019. In the cultural sphere, she curates and coordinates international programmes dedicated to architecture, design and innovation. Since 2021 she has curated SEED. Design Actions for the Future; since 2020 she has coordinated AJU/AJA, a project dedicated to design and craft culture with scientific responsibility held by Triennale Milano; and she was scientific coordinator of FESTARCH – International Architecture Festival, conceived by Stefano Boeri and promoted by RCS MediaGroup. Since 2023 she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the National Institute of Architecture and an associate member of the Italian Institute of Project Management (ISIPM). Since 2026 she has been President of the Sardinia Section of IN/Arch. She is the author of numerous publications.

Composer, artistic director, music critic and radio and television presenter, Nicola Campogrande graduated in composition from the Conservatories of Milan, under Azio Corghi, and of Paris. He is regarded as one of the most important Italian composers of his generation: his music, published exclusively by Breitkopf & Härtel since 2017, has been performed by artists such as Riccardo Chailly, Gautier Capuçon and Lilya Zilberstein in prestigious venues including Teatro alla Scala and the Philharmonie de Paris. His catalogue comprises more than 200 symphonic, chamber and theatrical works, including the operas Opera italiana and #Folon. Since 1998 he has presented cultural programmes on Rai Radio3 and for several years was a television presenter on Classica HD (Sky). He was artistic director of the MITO SettembreMusica festival from 2016 to 2023 and, for eleven years, of the Turin Philharmonic Orchestra; since 2023 he has been composer-in-residence of the Milan Symphony Orchestra and the Bologna Municipal Theatre. He contributes to the culture pages of Corriere della Sera and has written several works of musical popularisation, including Occhio alle orecchie, now in its sixth edition.

Patrizia Caraveo is a Research Director at the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and has directed the Institute for Space Astrophysics and Cosmic Physics in Milan. For her contributions to understanding the high-energy emission of neutron stars, she received the National Prize of the President of the Republic in 2009 and the Enrico Fermi Prize of the Italian Physical Society in 2021. In 2014 she was included in the list of Highly Cited Researchers and received the Outstanding Achievement Award from Women in Aerospace Europe. Author of more than 470 scientific papers, with an impact factor exceeding 120, she is the most-cited active Italian researcher in the field of astrophysics. As a member of the Swift, Fermi and AGILE collaborations, she shared the Bruno Rossi Prize of the American Astronomical Society with colleagues on three occasions, in 2007, 2011 and 2012. In 2017 she was named Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2025 she was elected President of the Italian Astronomical Society. She is a member of Gruppo 2003 for scientific research and of the “100 Women Against Stereotypes” initiative. Highly active in science communication, she has published 12 books.

Musician, producer, songwriter and sound engineer, guitarist and founder of Subsonica, one of the most important bands in Italian music of recent decades. Raised in the Turin underground scene of the 1980s, he has collaborated as producer and songwriter with artists including Afterhours, Almamegretta, Mina and Africa Unite — the last a band he was part of before founding Subsonica in 1996 together with Samuel Romano. He currently pursues several parallel projects, including Deproducers, dedicated to the musical transposition of science, and has served as president and co-director of the Traffic Torino Free Festival.

Associate Professor at the BioRobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, where he heads the Soft Mechatronics for Biorobotics Lab. He graduated with honours in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa in 2007 and obtained his PhD in Biorobotics from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. He is author or co-author of more than 100 international scientific publications and serves as Section Editor-in-Chief for the journal MDPI Actuators, as well as Associate Editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters and Frontiers in Robotics and AI. He chairs the IEEE Technical Committee on Soft Robotics and has received, among other honours, the Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies at the IROS Awards. His research focuses on the development of soft robotics technologies, with particular attention to actuators, sensors and flexible mechanisms, within numerous EU-funded projects.

Luisa Damiano, PhD, is Full Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at IULM University in Milan, where she directs the PhD School for Communication Studies and co-directs the CRiSiCo research centre (Research Centre on Complex Systems). She was previously Associate Professor at the University of Messina, coordinating the research group in the epistemology of artificial sciences. She is among the leading international experts in social robotics and the philosophical, ethical and communicative implications of interaction between humans and artificial systems. Her research spans the epistemology of complex systems to the philosophy of mind, with particular attention to social and cognitive robotics. Central to her work are the questions that arise when robots cease to be mere tools and become relational agents: the expectations, emotions and social dynamics activated in the encounter between human and artificial, and the ontology that emerges from the creation of machines capable of behaving as social beings. Her thinking also addresses ethical questions concerning the use of robots in care, assistance and education, opening fundamental questions about human identity and models of coexistence in a post-anthropocentric era. She collaborates with researchers in robotics, cognitive science and philosophy on international projects exploring the boundary between biology and technology, and between the natural and the artificial, and has worked with institutions such as the University of Hertfordshire and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. She is co-author, with Paul Dumouchel, of Living with Robots (Harvard University Press, 2017), and has curated projects combining art and social robotics, such as ScentDia, presented in 2025 at the Museo Nazionale Scienza e Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan.

Luca De Biase is an award-winning innovation journalist, essayist, professor and researcher, author of numerous successful books and pro bono contributor to Italian and European policy initiatives. A graduate in Economics from Bocconi University, he began his career in social history, working with Fernand Braudel in Paris, Aldo De Maddalena in Milan and Claudio Povolo in Venice. He then became a journalist, contributing to the launch of a financial daily in Italy, while continuing his research into ethics and economics for an Italian bank and into local development at the OECD. Since 1994 he has viewed the internet as a great opportunity to develop new ideas in journalism, and in 2005 he founded the Nòva project for Il Sole 24 Ore, which he directed for around fifteen years. He is currently Director of the Media Ecology research network at Reimagine Europa and Director of the Imminent Research Center, dedicated to the economics of language and artificial intelligence, at Translated. He hosts podcasts on media ecology and the knowledge society and teaches at the Universities of Pisa and of Modena and Reggio Emilia. He is the author of numerous volumes, including Armonie future (Rubbettino, 2021), Il lavoro del futuro (Codice, 2018), Come saremo, with Telmo Pievani (Codice, 2016), Homo pluralis (Codice, 2015), Media civici (Vita Feltrinelli, 2013), Cambiare pagina (Rizzoli, 2011), Economia della felicità (Feltrinelli, 2007) and Amore di Stato. Venezia Settecento (Sellerio, 1992). He defines innovation journalism as the development of a forward-looking perspective on events — a sort of history of the future, requiring humility and passion alongside rigorous research.