When my father bought, for very high price, the first family personal computer to let me and my sister play with it, I was still in elementary school. I imagine my mother, an elementary school teacher, being very skeptical about the opportunity for that investment: wasn’t it better, say, a nice family holiday? That PC, however, opened up a world to me. It made me discover the inner mechanisms of technology and soon it allowed me to open up to the age of communication with an access to the Internet (initially limited up to one hour in the evening - phone calling costs! - but still very exciting).

Certainly my passion for the world of computer science was born in that time. It then continued with my studies at the University of Milan Bicocca where I attended an Informatics degree course that taught me much more than what was in the course programs. It was, in fact, in the study rooms of Bicocca that I met the first “Linux users” (among us we used to call ourselves “penguins”) and there I got passionate about open source software and Linux in particular.

My professional career began in this period, during my university studies, and it led me to work in many large companies (national and international) in the development and implementation of IT and software solutions. I dealt with programming, designing IT architectures, coordinating groups of developers, ending up to a role in IT governance, which allowed me to deal with the whole IT of the Italian branch of Barclays, a large English bank.

However, something inside me continued to move and spin. That side, a bit dormant from my techno-enthusiasm, which is always aimed at people, the human and individual component started to knock on my head. Driven by this idea, I enrolled in the faculty of Psychology at the eCampus University and there I spent three wonderful years confronting myself with the human sciences (well, yes… they have little to do with the “hard sciences” that I had faced with the 15 math exams of the information technology course). I learned to make friends with Freud, Jung (who still leaves me with a bit of mystery, with his esotericism), Piaget and all the others. After 3 years, I got my second degree with an experimental thesis on complex emotions in children attending the primary school: I studied the concept of embarrassment and how difficult it is to understand it.

This experience led me to change my job and to bring back some individual components to what I do for a living. I have worked for a few years at GARR (the Italian research network), there I spent part of my time and energies to create “networks” between people: researchers and teams of national and international projects. More recently, I have been called by Reti, an IT consulting company, to work at the startup of the HR function (previously absent in the company) which gave me the opportunity to dedicate myself to human resources in a technological context. From summer 2019 I take part in a part-time EMBA of the Milan Polytechnic’s master-school that I hope will give me the opportunity to grow managerially and to consolidate my position as a director in competitive and dynamic environments.

In my free time, I like to dedicate myself to physical but also, and above all, intellectuals pleasures of life: books, theater, museums, monuments, opera. I think Italy is the best country in the World to cultivate these interests. When I have the opportunity, I enjoy taking part in volunteering activities. This led me to travel to different continents to get in touch and stay close to the poorest children on the planet. My aim with these experiences is to help children to have good nutrition and education, and try to give them a future: something that has never been questioned for me and for the children of my part of the world.

And the Digital Team? Well, I would say that for me it is a very stimulating dimension! The idea of having the opportunity to work putting my skills, time and energy at the service of the community and of the Country is really exciting. So, until the end of my mandate I will reduce my other commitments, which I will continue to partially follow (because you cannot build a group and then leave without taking interest in their future!). Most of my energy, however, will be dedicated to the Team and to the challenges we have set ourselves to overcome together.