Category: Events

Gianluca Spina Memorial Scholarship

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Again this year, MSCPM, MEM, MPAM and International Full Time MBA students have the chance to apply for the Gianluca Spina Memorial Scholarship, provided by the Associazione Gianluca Spina. The scholarship is named after Gianluca Spina, who was the Dean of MIP Graduate School of Business and Full Professor in Business Management and Supply Chain Management at the Department of Management Economics and Industrial Engineering of Politecnico di Milano.

For further information about call and deadlines, please write to infomasters@mip.polimi.it

GEMOS: here are the new features of our next edition

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GEMOS, the Executive Master dedicated to supply chain professionals, developed in partnership with EADA, has been updated with lots of new content and an even more flexible format!

This means that starting from the next edition of the programme, students will also be tackling major current issues such as sustainability, innovation and big data & data analysis.
This evolution enables us to keep pace with a world of work in constant flux.

So if, on the one hand, the study of theory is important, on the other, putting into practice the concepts learned is even more so. This is why students will have both the chance to test themselves with a Business Game in which supply chain and finance intersect, and to gain first-hand knowledge at the international level on supply chain-related topics through a series of company visits.

Finally, the format is also changing, as a distance learning component is being added. In addition to the one long weekend of lessons on campus every two months, we will in fact be holding live digital-learning sessions to provide a better response to the family and professional needs of our students, who come from all over the world.

 

Today’s Project Manager at the crossroads of  technology, experience, speed  

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New technologies, Big Data and international dimensions are some of the factors that must be taken into account by today’s Project Manager, an often underestimated figure who, in the face of increasingly complex and fluid situations, takes on growing importance. We talked about this with Mauro Mancini, a professor of Project and Programme Management at the School of Management of Politecnico di Milano.

«It’s good to be clear that project management is the management of people and information, and the era of digitalization we are going through is changing approaches and methods of interaction and communication between people – Professor Mancini explains –. The more a company is able to equip itself with project management tools that can benefit from all this, the more it will be able to effectively handle the continuous changes in its operating environment».

In this sense, Artificial Intelligence (AI) should be seen as an ally rather than a threat. «The quantity of data we must manage today is clearly higher than in the past. A Project Manager must be able to very quickly understand the situation, gather the greatest amount of data possible, verify its quality and process it to develop a tactical or strategic plan. Artificial Intelligence will be increasingly important for a Project Manager, who more and more will face unforeseen situations». But according to Mauro Mancini, the more qualitative part of work will remain the prerogative of man: «Artificial Intelligence carries out simulations based on the rules supplied by man, but it can’t predict the future. Who must manage a project needs for everything that respects past rules to be managed ‘automatically’, and in this AI is very useful, but the winning card as far as innovation or creativity is concerned will always be, in my view, in the hands of human intelligence».

The emphasis the society we live in places on speed, and the possibility, often offered by technology, to quickly experiment with solutions, is leading to the spread of the approach known as the “culture of failure,” whose sense is summed up in the English expression “Fast fail, cheap fail”. «It’s an approach that I totally agree with – says Mancini –. In some cultures, in particular the American one, if you’ve never failed, you’re not suitable for leading particularly complex and innovative processes, because never having failed means never having risked. Obviously a project needs all types of people: those who risk and conservatives. And the Project Manager must have the ability to understand those areas in which it’s right to make mistakes in order to learn quickly and others in which you need to be more careful».

The question of speed is also tied in part to another much debated issue in this period, that of the right mix between soft and hard skills in managerial positions. Rapid changes in scenarios – in the market or a single project – require adaptability and learning, while at the same time the specialized skills required of those who work (especially in hi-tech) are also changing quickly. «One of the tasks of the Project Manager – explains Mancini – is that of understanding very quickly the technical expertise necessary for a specific project (hard skills). Soft skills, which I prefer to call behavioural skills, right now are the subject of great attention in Europe. Also in this case there’s the time factor: they are skills that, for the very reason that they’re ‘soft’, are stimulated daily from an early age. Industrial sectors are characterized by different degrees of technical complexity, but in order for a Project Manager to know how to judge the correctness of the answer to the fundamental question ‘how much time is needed to do this activity?’ independently of the fact that it is asked to internal or external human resources, it’s necessary that he’s done this activity himself or, at least, has all the elements to rapidly verify (often in real time) the correctness of the response.
For a Project Manager, having technical expertise doesn’t mean knowing how to design a component, a system or an organization, but knowing and/or quickly assimilating the rules of the game of the context in which he finds himself».

Among behavioural skills, intercultural ones are destined to become increasingly important. «We increasingly find ourselves dealing with projects in which the people involved come from completely different cultures. In different countries, relational capabilities can leverage off technically instruments that are diametrically opposed to one’s own culture. So we must increasingly be able to interact with ways of thinking and behaviours that are very different from ours, that can hide values that are equally diverse».

 

 

 

 

Manufacturing 4.0: man at the centre

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The future of manufacturing is digital and is shaping up in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Small and medium enterprises, like big ones, must equip themselves in order not to be left irremediably behind. Yet, in a fashion that is only apparently paradoxical, Industry 4.0 relaunches the centrality of man and themes such as training and social inclusion.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that the world’s future equilibrium depends on the manufacturing sector. Convinced of this is Marco Taisch, Professor of Advanced and Sustainable Manufacturing at the Politecnico di Milano School of Management: «Manufacturing in the future will have a bona fide role of peacekeeper. Thanks to its evolution and its diffusion, we’ll see a decrease in migratory phenomena and an increase in levels of wellbeing. In other words, we’ll enjoy greater social stability, due also to the positive impact manufacturing has on other sectors of the economy; for example, for every euro generated by manufacturing, at least another two are generated in related services. Provided, of course, that the necessary skills are gradually acquired, without which sustainability at all levels is unthinkable».

During World Manufacturing Forum 2018, Marco Taisch, scientific chairman, presented a report with ten recommendations for the future of manufacturing. The issue of skills and training is among those seen as most important: «It’s necessary to invest in people, in addition to technologies. Training has a more than linear impact: without it, technologies can’t deploy their full potential». There’s a caveat, however. Unlike other sectors, manufacturing above all needs specific skills: «Cross-cutting expertise is always useful, but in this case digital and hard skills are more important than in other sectors».

It’s for this reason that there’s a need for change in the world of training. If on one hand analysts concur that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to a negative net impact on employment in the short term, on the other Professor Taisch affirms that this will become positive in the medium-long term: «Provided, however, that there is a change in the way of communicating about manufacturing, a sector still associated with a ‘dirty’ image, that scares off families and pushes young people to pursue courses of study that then won’t find an outlet on the market».

Universities are gearing up. Politecnico di Milano’s School of Management, for example, offers an executive programme in Manufacturing Management that aims to make clear the potential of a future manufacturing system that is new, advanced, intelligent and sustainable and introduce the constituent elements of the modern industrial revolution.

An opportunity to be seized, therefore. Also by adopting a framework of inclusivity and diversity: «For a long time manufacturing was the prerogative of the male gender, for trivial issues of physical strength – continues Taisch –. The 4.0 technologies shift the centre of gravity from muscles to the brain, and thus more towards women. And then I am personally convinced, and with me many other experts, that companies can see a great advantage from the hiring of a diverse workforce in terms of gender, religion, ethnicity. It’s an issue of competitiveness, other than ethics».

On the other hand, fears are not lacking, and often are expressed by companies themselves or by those who are already in the workforce, scared by the idea that a machine can shut them out of the productive process: «In reality it’s not like that. The 4.0 technologies are enabling. They’re not alternative to people, but increase their capabilities and productivity, further strengthening them», explains Professor Taisch.

Another element that leads to diffidence, especially among SMEs, is cybersecurity: «The cloud scares people. Many companies ask us: ‘Where are my data?’. The fear arises first from a lack of understanding, and secondly from an overestimation of the risks that technologies do indeed entail.
Companies lose data much more often because of a faulty backup, than because of the cloud. The truth is that a company that positions itself outside of the Net is destined to disappear in a few years, and that today data should be considered for all purposes as a raw material».

What Jobs Will Survive Artificial Intelligence?

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“We want to bring intelligence to everything, to everywhere, and for everyone”. The person who said it is Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, the company that recently launched the “Zo” chatbot that can construct sophisticated human-machine dialogues. And it’s through Microsoft artificial intelligence (AI) instruments that the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano developed FLEXA, an innovative and revolutionary digital platform of personalized and continuous learning, a digital mentor able to identify and select specific contents, useful for the path of study of each user.

«This project, but the idea applies to Artificial Intelligence in general, began from an awareness: we had identified certain needs and technology could help us to satisfy them – says Federico Frattini, Associate Dean of Digital Transformation at MIP Politecnico di Milano and creator of FLEXA –. Specifically, our Masters students wanted to know each other better, also from a comparative point of view, to then pursue ad hoc training programmes, while our alumni, our former students, asked us for effective continuous learning solutions. We reasoned on the basis of these inputs and the result was FLEXA: on this platform it’s possible to carry out an assessment of one’s soft, hard and digital skills and declare one’s career ambitions; once all this information is processed, FLEXA provides all the indications to fill these skill gaps through events, courses and training programmes on the basis of the needs indicated. And it doesn’t only provide contents from Politecnico di Milano: we have agreements with Gartner, New York Times, Financial Times, MIT and many other prestigious groups. With FLEXA, it will also be possible to have a mentor recommended, create a matching system with startups and companies, create new contents».

One of the points on which the debate is understandably most heated involves the impact artificial intelligence will have on employment. In addition to more mechanical and repetitive jobs, such as those carried out by assembly line workers and, as already mentioned, driving cars and some activities in restaurants and supermarkets, automation is also entering the field of services. According to some studies, for example, by 2030 there will no longer be “human” call centres, while in Japan many robots are already operational in assisting the elderly.

On the other hand, artificial intelligence has limits that in many cases prevent it from substituting human jobs. At the same time, the role technology can play in supporting and strengthening humans in carrying out some higher-skill activities may be underrated. The renowned Chinese artificial expert Kai-Fu Lee, a businessman involved in this very sector and the author of the recent book AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order, identifies four weaknesses of AI for work performance:

  1. AI cannot create, conceptualize or manage complex strategic planning;
  2. AI cannot accomplish complex work that requires precise hand-eye coordination;
  3. AI cannot deal with unknown and unstructured spaces, especially ones that it hasn’t observed;
  4. AI cannot, unlike humans, feel or interact with empathy and compassion; therefore, it is unlikely that humans would opt for interacting with an apathetic robot for traditional communication services.

Given this premise, Kai-Fu Lee draws up a list of ten professions that will be immune from the robotic invasion, at least in the next 15 years: psychiatry, physical therapy, medicine, AI-related research and engineering, fiction writing, teaching, law, computer science and engineering, science, and management. In all these professions AI can be of help, but only in a collaborative sense for the management of certain technical details.

 “There’s no doubt that the AI revolution will require readjustments and a great deal of sacrifice” affirms Kai-Fu Lee, “but despairing rather than preparing for what’s come is unproductive and, perhaps, even reckless”.

And then he concludes: “We must remember that our human knack for compassion and empathy is going to be a valuable asset in the future workforce, and that jobs hinged on care, creativity, and education, will remain vital to our society”.

«I believe that the best way to approach artificial intelligence is to tie it in with theories explaining innovation and entrepreneurship – says Federico Frattini –. We can define it as an accelerator of processes of creative destruction determined by digital innovation, taking inspiration from what the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter said about the big changes that had an impact on the economy and on society: new opportunities are created, new companies and new professions are created, others evolve and still others, inevitably, disappear. We certainly can’t oppose the creative forces that have changed society over the centuries».

 

The manager of today (and tomorrow)

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The job market of the near future will feature managers open to change and able to evolve. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or rather the use of technology in numerous activities previously carried out exclusively by man, threatens some professions, promises to create new ones, and requires an effort to adapt from everyone, in particular from those with decision-making roles.

That of manager is one of the professions that has the least to fear from changes underway, indeed managers will take on an increasingly key role. But precisely for this reason managers have a greater need than others to update their expertise to be prepared for the continuous evolution of job scenarios. The evolution that they are called upon to interpret and manage.

The Future of Jobs Report 2018, published by World Economic Forum, indicates the professions tied to reasoning and decision-making, and those related to coordination, development, management and consulting, as the two categories in which the relationship between hours worked by humans and machines will remain decisively tilted towards the former. But the same report stresses that by 2022, at least 54% of managers will be required to undergo a major re-skilling or upskilling. Many of the companies interviewed declared their intention to concentrate their efforts to upgrade expertise on employees with high value-added positions.

The manager of the future, called on to navigate in a complex society that changes continuously and at a very rapid pace, on one hand needs always up-to-date hard skills, especially in the technological field, and on the other hand soft skills like analytic thinking, resilience, creativity, emotional intelligence, flexibility.

The matter was also discussed in the “Human skills and drivers for change” roundtable, held on 2 February at MIP Politecnico di Milano during the first EMBA Day 2019 (the event is part of the “Practising Leadership cycle”, whose next appointment is scheduled for 6 March on the theme of “Empower your career”). On that occasion, Pino Mercuri, Human Resources Director at Microsoft Italia, focused on the issue of obsolescence of IT skills. “The average engineering or technological skill has a shelf life between 24 and 48 months –said Mercuri –. However, we don’t have complete clarity about the skills that will be necessary in the near future.  We talk about Machine Learning, of AI, of IoT, but they’re often more passwords than real concepts”.

Faced with this increased instability on required skills, the ability to learn and the motivation to do so over one’s working life become increasingly important. “At Microsoft we tried to make everyone understand that learning isn’t only necessary but is also an element of evaluation – added Mercuri –. In our performance management system, we ask you to declare what you intend to do to grow and learn, and the answer to that question is verified during the next evaluation step”.

The head hunter Jacopo Pasetti, also present at the roundtable, focused on two concepts, awareness and passion: “Awareness should be considered as an understanding of our career path and what we truly like to do. It’s necessary so that the continuous updating required due to the rapid evolution of skills isn’t considered to be a weight. So you must choose your career path not on the basis of what’s in fashion at the moment but by following your passions, in addition to a clear strategy”. 

However, the importance of soft skills shouldn’t lead to neglecting hard skills. “We’re in a historical moment in which they’re trying to convince us that skills and culture aren’t so important after all – stressed Fulvia Fiaschetti, Global Talent Acquisition Associate Director of Amplifon –. I believe instead that the business world strongly opposes this type of thinking”. Technical expertise, the manager argues, is needed especially at the entrance in a company, while soft skills are developed later and serve to make further progress. Communication, empathy, forward thinking are skills that can’t be learned from books.

The need to learn quickly also leads to the spread of a culture of error, understood as an invitation to continuously dare and experiment, also using failure as a means for learning.  “The error isn’t only possible but is also necessary to acquire an increasing number of skills – pointed out Pino Mercuri –. If you’re making mistakes, it’s probably because you’re truly trying to innovate”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIGHT AND SHADOWS FROM THE COP24 IN KATOWICE

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There are only twelve years left for mankind to avert a climate catastrophe. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sounded the alarm on climate change at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24), which took place in December in Katowice, Poland.

What judgement can be made about this critical international conference? What emerges is a mixed picture, with experts divided between those concerned about the lack of progress and those who focus instead on the importance of the results – albeit limited – that have been achieved so far.

“Climate change is a complicated negotiation process involving many countries. As such it is natural to expect slow progress”, stated Massimo Tavoni, Professor of Climate Change Economics at Politecnico di Milano School of Management. “The main objective of this year COP meeting was to take stock of where we are and come up with implementation guidelines. These objectives were achieved overall, but also showed how little progress has been achieved thus far. In particular, the meeting in Katowice underlined the political fragility of the Paris Climate agreement signed in 2015. The skeptical positions of the governements of the US, and of the just elected Brasilian one, in addition to the countervailing forces of countries in the Gulf, has casted doubts on the capacity of the Paris agreement to make real additional progress on emissions’ reductions. This while the science has been accumulating new worrying signs of the potentially devastating impacts of climate change on human and ecosystems” pointed out Tavoni, recipient of a European Research Council (ERC) grant evaluating how behavioural sciences can be used to promote pro-environmental behaviour.

Although technically the COP24 achieved its objective, which was to approve guidelines on the application of the Paris Agreement to combat climate change reached at the COP21 summit in 2015, a collective commitment to strive toward the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) was not reached. The objective of the Paris Agreement was to keep the increase in global temperatures below 2 °C compared to pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the rise to 1.5 °C.

“In order to do that, the objectives of voluntary reduction must be fixed at a national level, but it is also necessary to guarantee coherent, common and transparent methods in order to be able to compare the different objectives and the actions of different countries with the same methodology” observed Giuseppe Onufrio, Director of Greenpeace Italy. “Without this, each country would measure things their own way. The aim of Katowice was therefore to have the technical foundations to carry on, a goal which has been reached despite its challenges. At the same time, though, there was a marked decline in leadership”.

Conference attendees clearly saw this “decline in leadership” from the start of the conference, with a heated discussion on how to acknowledge the IPCC special report issued just two months before the Katowice conference evaluating the different impact on the climate that would be seen with a 1.5 °C increase in temperature and one of 2 °C.

The United States, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, all of which are oil producers, decided not to “welcome” the results presented by the climatologists. Therefore, at the end of the COP24, participants simply “took note” of the IPCC special report. There is a big difference between “using the little word ‘welcome’ or ‘taking note’, which means taking note without necessarily taking action” pointed out Onufrio.

Yet alongside the achievement of the technical objectives of the Katowice conference, which allow negotiations on climate commitments to continue, there were also other positive aspects of the COP24. Climate issues involving agriculture, soil and forests became a central part of policy discussions. And, for the first time, a real debate began about the future of coal. The Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Science and the Polish Academy of Science presented a document recommending a transition away from reliance on coal in Poland by 2030.
That could also have some positive consequences in terms of employment, as Giuseppe Onufrio explained: “The sectors that will cease to exist, like those of the fossil fuels industry, have a high capital intensity and a low labour intensity, with the exception of mines, which will lose jobs anyway, in part due to automation which is affecting this industry too. Instead, in renewable sources of energy, there is much higher need for workers for every unit of energy produced”.

 

 

Elections of 1 student representative  in the Department Council

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We remind you  that on Thursday 31 january 2019,  elections of 1 student representative  in the Department Council will be held.

The following nominations were received:

  • Battanta Luca Federico
  • Siragusa Chiara

The vote will take place:

First vote:  Thursday, 31 january 2019, from 9 am to 5 pm, in the  room 0.13 ground floor.

Second ballot (if any): Friday, 1 february 2019, from 9.00 am to 12.00 (noon) in the  room 0.13 ground floor.

Each voter can express one vote.

The vote will take place by secret ballot and will be valid if you’ll be attending at least one-third of those eligible for the first vote, while the second vote is without a quorum.

Who will get the most votes will be elected; in case of an equal number of votes, shall be elected the major of age.

Voters must present themselves to the polling station with an appropriate identity document (identity card, driving license, passport).

EFMD Conference for Deans & Directors General

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On January 21st, Business Schools Deans and Directors met in Shanghai for a Conference organized by EFMD.
Hosted by CEIBS – China Europe International Business School, the Conference  addressed the theme “Enterprising Deans in a Global Context”.

Andrea Sianesi, MIP Dean, joined the Conference with as a speaker. His speech focused on what type of different online learning environments can be adopted in the management education and what online learning aspects would reinforce this learning effectiveness.

The event was followed by an EFMD Quality Services Seminar on January 23rd, addressed to Schools considering EFMD accreditation, EFMD certification or EFMD mentoring.

 

Local Hub Inauguration – Promoting Food Donations and Reducing Food Waste

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In 2015, Milano was behind a new Food Policy to pioneer a more sustainable food system throughout the city, introducing a multidisciplinary and participative approach where city authorities act as drivers and enablers.
A top priority in the food policy is to reduce food waste, and the best way to get there was to bring on board local players – the city’s research centres, institutions, private sector, foundations and social actors.

To turn this priority into concrete actions, in 2016, Comune di Milano, Assolombarda and Politecnico di Milano agreed a memorandum of understanding, entitled “ZeroSprechi”, set up to reduce food waste and implement a new method for collecting food which would then be donated to those in need. The design and trial of such a model to gather and redistribute excess food was built around local groups and networks.

Comune di Milano identified an unused public area in the Municipio 9 zone, allocating it to the project as a hub for stocking and distributing food collected by TSOs, charities and non-profit organisations.
Politecnico di Milano conducted a feasibility study on the network and now will monitor the operations at the hub and the impact of the project over a 12-month period, building a logistics model that can be scaled up and replicated in other city quarters.
Assolombarda ran an intense awareness programme, identifying and involving several companies who have joined the project, and it supplied the “ZeroSprechi” logo designed and donated by the Armando Testa Group, to reward exemplary companies and highlight the serious problem of managing food excess.
Banco Alimentare della Lombardia, winner of the competition to run the hub, will be responsible for day-to-day operations on the basis of the Politecnico-designed model, collecting food excess and distributing this food to partner charitable organisations in the local area.
Programma QuBì – a formula to fight child poverty – which had previously started a similar hub in Via degli Umiliati, joined the initiative, funding the outfitting and management of the hub in Via Borsieri and bringing its own local network into the scheme.
This is an innovative project involving the combined work of all actors concerned, from the companies engaged in donating and enabling the recovery of excess food, to non-profit organisations acting as contact points with the needy and the public authorities backing these ethical initiatives.

“I am pleased that this hub is now open, because so many of our city’s plays worked together to get it off the ground”, declared Anna Scavuzzo, Milan’s Deputy Mayor responsible for the Food Policy programme. “This is the first example of a local network established to collect and redistribute food before excess becomes waste. Collaboration with Municipio 9 means that we were able to give the city an unused public space and, at the same time, highlight our commitment to reduce food waste, a top priority in Milan’s Food Policy. This project runs alongside a 20% reduction in the variable quota of the TARI tax on waste for companies that donate food, the drive to collect and redistribute food excess from school canteens, and wider actions currently under study together with AMSA (waste management services). The Via Borsieri hub is another step forward in our quest for a more sustainable, inclusive and equal Milan”.
Giuseppe Lardieri, President of Municipio 9 echoed her feelings by saying: “I am happy that Municipio 9 is hosting this project. At its heart is the debate on the right of access to food and the distribution of food that is not used. With the new poverty in our smart cities, these are topics that should push us all to do better. Without forgetting that reducing food waste means reducing waste in general and encouraging us to eat more perishable foods like fruit and vegetables, which are also healthier. I am sure that all actors in the Municipio 9 zone – industries, supermarkets, restaurants and food services, third sector, institutions – will play their part to ensure the success of this initiative”.

“Politecnico di Milano is proud to bring its contribution to the project, elaborating a model for collecting food that can be replicated in other parts of the city and in other places altogether”, declared Marco Melacini, Professor of Logistics and Scientific Director of the Food Sustainability Observatory of Politecnico di Milano. “The project does not terminate with the opening of this hub in Via Borsieri and there will be regular meetings to check whether it is proving effective in the excess food collected and efficient in gathering and distributing this food. The work group will provide periodical updates on the progress of the project”.

“We are proud that the first food excess recovery project engaging supply chain companies and third sector operators within the city of Milan is in now place, two years from signing the memorandum of understanding”, said Alessandro Perego, Director of the Management Engineering Department at Politecnico di Milano. “The need to act on waste is particularly sensitive both from a social standpoint and environmentally, and we believe that Milan, with everyone concerned acting together, is taking a decisive step towards a more sustainable future in matters relating to food”.

“Today we have reached a significant target in our fight against waste, setting in motion an effective process to gather and redistribute food excess, based on a replicable model that makes Milan the standard-bearer for this campaign”, stated Alessandro Scarabelli, General Director of Assolombarda Confindustria Milano, Monza & Brianza, Lodi. “This result is the outcome of strong collaboration between associations, bodies, companies, universities and non-profit organisations, all pooling their contributions in a joint, concerted undertaking and, by using a fast track system, maximising the delivery and consumption of excess food. In addition, with the “ZeroSprechi” logo, we want to highlight the companies taking an active role in the project that, by joining the initiative, are promoting good practice and a culture of reducing food waste”.

“Banco Alimentare della Lombardia intends to get closer to its partner charitable organisations in the districts of Milan’s Municipio 8 and Municipio 9 zones, and fight food poverty together. We are, with for-profit companies, institutions, trade associations and grant-giving foundations, a winning team, and can address need with real solutions”, said Marco Magnelli, Director of Banco Alimentare della Lombardia.

“The problem of child food poverty in Milan must be faced and resolved through an intervention model that requires all the forces involved to work together closely. The inauguration of the Via Borsieri hub is a giant step in this direction. Programma QuBì has already helped Banco Alimentare della Lombardia to open the first two city collection points and now, through our synergy with other interested parties, we will be able to maximise food collection, reduce waste and strengthen our capacity to reach families in food poverty. The fight against food poverty is a cornerstone action in the multi-year Programma QuBì promoted by Fondazione Cariplo Foundation – with the support of Fondazione Vismara Foundation, Intesa Sanpaolo, Fondazione Enrica & Romeo Invernizzi and Fondazione Fiera Milano – in collaboration with Comune di Milano and third sector organisations operating in the local area. This 25-million-euro challenge will commit Milan in its entirety, calling on companies, institutions and private citizens to produce a common formula that can provide concrete answers to disadvantaged families and create exit paths from need”, concluded Giuseppe Guzzetti, President of Fondazione Cariplo