The award of the International Magna Grecia Prize 2019,made by master goldsmith Gerardo Sacco, took place during the gala dinner on Saturday, October 5, 2019, in the Art Nouveau scenario of the Ancient Bathing Establishment built in 1912 in Mondello. This year the award given by the Magna Grecia Foundation has become an important moment of the “SUD and FUTURI” meeting.
It was Sandra Savaglio who was Federico Faggin’s godmother, “that with his genius has made humanity a better place, where technologies are at the service of people. Inventor of the microchip and father of the touch screen, the scientist has never forgotten to be first and foremost the man Federico Faggin, able to bring to the world the deepest values of our culture and our history. Science must free man from needs and not enslave him: this is the first lesson he has given us and continues to give us, continuing his battle against those who consider human beings simple digital emanations and data on which to build increments of capital”. These are the reasons with which Nino Foti presented the International Magna Greece Prize 2019 “to a man who makes us very proud to be Italian”.
The Award was joined by the Special Career Award. Josephine Paterniti was the godmother of Fulvio Lucisano, “for telling through his films the story of an Italy full of contradictions but also of passion and creative genius. Through cinema our country has managed to establish itself in the World as the cradle of a new humanism and a new humanity, as a forge of talent and culture. Fulvio Lucisano has given luster to Italy without ever being over the top, with a sobriety and elegance that the whole world of cinema recognizes by continuing to give him national and international awards”.
Lucisano “perfectly embodies the values of the Magna Greece Foundation – it still reads in the motivation – that’s why we give him a special recognition to the career, but not only: because he is the story, it is the present and it is also the future of the our cinema.”
“In Italy they treat us like beggars, as potential crooks”: astrophysics sandra Savaglio’s words sum up the meaning of the conference “SOUTH and FUTURI”, I Annual International Meeting organized by the Magna Greece Foundation. The Mondello Palace in Palermo hosted a very intense three days, developed on two pins: the South of the world and the search for possible futures. Winning the choice to dedicate to the twelve thematic tables the development of ideas and directions: they converge on the same conclusions both the large audience that for three days animated the meeting, and the fifty speakers who passed the baton. At the root of each proposal there is the concept made excellently by the scientist Savaglio: Italy and its South churn out beautiful brains, which are forced to go away, to enrich other countries.
“The time has come to build the solid foundations to stop this bleeding,” explains Nino Foti,president of the Magna Grecia Foundation, which has been building a new works internationally to build a network of Italians abroad. “We have been talking for years, maybe decades,” Foti continues. Of brain drain. But little and nothing has been done to find remedies. The Foundation Magna Greece has traveled the world to collect the personal stories of great Italians who have established themselves abroad, until the time has come to back to Italy”. The international meeting “SUD and FUTURI” was born to have the protagonists build cultural, scientific, social, the guidelines on which to operate because the South may have a future. In fact, many futures. And the foundations have so many names, so many faces. Starting with those of journalists who led the tables of the meeting, to the last, in which the conclusions were drawn. One out of all Paolo Mieli: “Circulating ideas and not standing still is already a first step. The Meeting, beautifully designed and organized, not only did it bring the whole world together, but it also took you representation of women in significant proportions: competent women, who play an important role in this debate, because they open up new ways of think about the problems and to fix them.” “The mentality of a path is born, now it’s up to us to overcome individualism and make net”he chipped Giuseppina Paterniti, director of Tg3.
Look for faults to overcome them and move forward. Saverio Romano, vice president of the Magna Greece Foundation and head of Dip, has no doubts. Noon Eurispes: “The South is in these conditions above all because of the mistakes made by the political class of the South itself. We didn’t do our part to the full. It’s time to do it.”
Intense international table. Albert Aoun,President of the Lebanese Italian Business Council, focused the talk on the prospects of Italy-Lebanon agreements especially in the agri-food sector, as well as the Lebanese ambassador Mira Daher Violides who, starting from the great problems of war and hunger, has designed his imaginary future through cooperation between all the countries of the Mediterranean basin. He could not miss the deepening on an important issue such as immigration, made by Joseph Gauci, representative of the Republic of Malta in the Geie (EU), and on the diaspora, made by the Albanian Minister Pandeli Majko. Panagiotis Roumeliotis, former Minister of Economy and President of the Attika Bank in Athens, delved into the local economic crash and the need to network, welcomed by Arthur J. Gajarsa, U.S. Federal Judge, who proposed synergies overseas.
Economics and finance, international politics, development and cooperation make no sense without legality, an essential basis to “rule the South.” “SOUTH and FUTURI” opened with a double focus fight against mafias. Giulio French and Carlo Parisi recalled fellow journalists killed by mafias, drawing the line between rights and duties in the vast world of information. It was then up to the experienced mafia teacher Antonio Nicaso,in connection from Toronto, and the magistrate Nicola Gratteri to enter on the merits of the “strategy of silence”,that where the mafias move and operate, confusing the cards. Catanzaro’s attorney does not discount: “No government, so far, has put the fight against mafias first. There are so many fine declarations of intent, of all political colors, but the results they get with deeds, not with words. Starting with the fight against corruption, to a certain policy and a certain bureaucracy, because today crime no longer needs to kill, since it achieves with corruption the same goals. And then we have to fight against an undefeated accompliceand organized crime, which is the way to telling about mafia making, making it a status, a way of being, a pattern to follow. Seeing kids outside schools imitating Savastano, or who for him, it is a defeat not only of ours, but of the whole of society”.
The mafias also have many faces for Federico Cafiero de Raho, National Anti-Mafia Prosecutor: “The corruption is the country’s emergency. In the past it was the home of subjects economic services, even though they are not linked to organised crime, is now used by mafias as a tool to acquire contracts or concessions from the Public. It has become the ordinary tool through which subvert the rules and pollute the Public Administration to the detriment of healthy businesses that comply with the rules”.
Culture is still a weapon to save universe. “To recover the roots, to remember who we are and who we can be”, as the film producer Fulvio Lucisano told in presenting “Aspromonte – the Land ofthe Last”, a bet made with director Mimmo Calopresti and with an exceptional cast, in theaters from November 21. Want to tell you that it can become a real economic success, as happened in Basilicata and Matera: this was summed up by Paride Leporace,director of the Lucana Film Commision,because “it’s not true that you don’t eat with culture.”
Futures cannot ignore research scientific science and artificial intelligence. With distinctions, as he pointed out the physicist Federico Faggin: “Today, the simulation of reality is reality. But we don’t have to forget the value of human intelligence made of intuition, creativity, inventiveness. Innovation becomes positive when you are aware of what“. Melinda Chen, General manager of Deep Blue Technology,anticipating the opening of the Italian headquarters in Rome of the Chinese ai giant, explains his point of view: “Artificial intelligence is the future. Our project is to cooperate Universities and Italian companies in order to use it to protect archaeological and infrastructure assets“.
The desire to return to Italy is as strong as that of working to build the conditions that make young people stay in the Belpaese. Sandra Savaglio, now at the University of Cosenza, did so, because“Italy prepares the students and does it very well. The fact that culture is accessible to all is a great social achievement, which envious us all“. Antonio Nicaso wants to do it. And he’s doing it, still intermittently, Federico Faggin. The physical inventor of the microchip and father of the touch screen went to the International Prize Magna Greece 2019,made by master goldsmith Gerardo Sacco. An award, explained Foti “that we decided to deliver in Italy and to double”. A double delivery, during the gala dinner on Saturday, October 5th: Sandra Savaglio served as godmother to Faggin, Josephine Paterniti to Fulvio Lucisano, who was handed the Special Recognition for Career.
