La Storia nel Futuro, Genoa Conferences 2007-2008

[Corrado Alesso]

October, 15th 2007 - Hi everyone, here's a brief summary of the speech by Ing. Sergio De Luca (CEO of AnsaldoSTS) that took place today.

After a short intrduction by prof. Centurioni and Paolo Marenco, that also explained how to join this network and what it takes to be selected for the study tour in SV, ing. De Luca began talking about what AnsaldoSTS is and do. The company was 100% owned by Finmeccanica until March 2006, date in which the 60% of the company has been left to public deal. AnsaldoSTS is active in the field of railways signalling and systems, it is present in 18 countries and counts 4000+ employees. AnsaldoSTS leads, with two successful projects, the areas of driverless mass-transport systems and signalling of high-speed railways. One of the most important things that ing. De Luca left us, is the deep conviction that railways and train transport are far from being an obsolete almost-200 years old technology. Instead, it will be more and more supported by international community because of its small environmental impact and energy requirements (if compared to traditional transport systems).

The last part of the conference was left to us to ask questions, techinical explanations or what it takes to be employed by AnsaldoSTS.

I would ask mr.Marenco to post here a reply with the slides of the conference.

See you next time..

Corrado

[Alessandro Villa]

I think it's important to remind some more De Luca words...preparation is not all! He underlines the importance of working in team. Play fair and avoid creating an atmosphere of hatred help us to realize our ideas, and also group ideas...

Alessandro

[paolo marenco]

Prof Centurioni, Electrical engineering opened the conference. I attach the very good presentation of Ing de Luca

[paolo marenco]

Corrado, very good the idea to abstract the Genova conferences, it's a great job ...keep on doing it!

[Simone Mangiante]

Good idea, but I'd like to know the opinions of those who listened it. Was it interesting? How can I put a poll in a discussion?

[paolo marenco]

I agree , after some conferences you could evaluate persons and approach having an idea of the relevant companies...remember that a manager is always a mirror of his company...you will tell me more after the next 2, Revelli and Carrone , 2 young and dynamic managers... involve your colleagues...also advices are welcome

[Corrado Alesso]

Thanks, I thought it could be useful to those who cannot attend the conferences.

Yes, it was very interesting, a success story is always interesting and inspiring. Maybe, but this is my personal opinion, it would have been even more interesting if a bigger part of the speech was dedicated to the path followed by those that made the company or its vision possible. I'm not talkin about the story or the changes during the years (we can evntually find these information on the website/brochures), I'm talking about how the founder (or the boss...) thought the initial idea, how he/she developed it in the early stages, how to bring the "garage idea" to a 5000+ employees company... of course I'm not referring to the specific case of AnsaldoSTS's conference.

We, the studends, graduated or not, think: "ok, I'm (almost) done, so... where do I start?" and maybe this is the most difficult question to answer to, indeed.

[paolo marenco]

Corrado, many companies like Ansaldo has long history, more than one century, not very significant for our time..during the cicle you will see Oriana, a new start up...many are the case in our blog, in the next days i will give you a map of who is who on this matter...to contact them and involve in our Forum..

[Simone Mangiante]

Here are my impressions: it was an "old style" talk, because too much time was dedicated to describe AnsaldoSTS and its deals. Ok, De Luca must tell something about his company, but talks should be focused on ideas, and life experiences. I can find history and infos of a company on Wikipedia, but I can't find which new ideas were behind and which choices people did.

[paolo marenco]

ok Simone, I think that from every conference you have to find something useful for you, not always the same....The next histories of Revelli and Carrone will be much more challenging for you... De Luca gave some good "human messages" and the knowledge that the train sector is a promising one..

[paolo marenco]

I try to give you a map of startup in our network. First of all Carla Humphrey ( she is from Genova) and her husband Arthur with their company Last Day of Work , ldw.com , show that is possible 1 -to make a start up from your house( in San Francisco) 2.- to make it without VC 3- to work in crowdsourcing ( many people from all over the world, thks to web) see their presentation attached.
Tzotzo is Tony Zuccarino, american with parents from Genova, many start up launched and sold now launching pikiwiki.com, already ads in our post . Than you find Claudio Basile that is still working in a big company in SV and the night and the week ends work with some colleagues to zerosoft.com. Cosimo Spera, with zipidy.com , is launching his third start up in the sector of parking ( pay by mobile phone). Guido Radaelli, after a master in Berkeley, founded with 3 master colleagues aurorabiofuel.com , operating between SV( the lab) and Florida ( the field)

[Corrado Alesso]

Thank you for these informations. I'm also looking forward for next conferences. Actually I have some troubles with this file... Can I open it just with the office's mac version? My version (pc 2003) seems not to like it...

[paolo marenco]

Question for Corrado and other guys: it'is better to open other Forum about each of the 9 conferences in Genova or going on in this Forum with the other speakers ? in this second case we have to change the Forum Title. Let's decide before 29th.