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Innovation

“THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME”:
THE PIAGGIO FAST FORWARD DÉBUT EVENT IN MILAN

“The Shape of Things to Come” was the first event presenting the PIAGGIO FAST FORWARD project. It could only have been held in Italy, where the Piaggio Group is headquartered. And it could only have been held – physically in Milan, and streamed to all corners of the world – in front of an audience composed of thousands of university students, who are the future of the world, of society and of thought. In attendance were Matteo Colaninno, Vice President of the Piaggio Group, Michele Colaninno, Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Immsi Group (majority shareholder in the Piaggio Group), the Piaggio & C. S.p.A. Board of Directors and the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the new PFF company.
Here is how Marco Montemagno, master of ceremony, gave an invitation the day before to follow the event, which took place at The Mall, Milan, on 2 October 2015:

"The Shape of Things to Come"

AN EXTRAORDINARY PANEL OF SPEAKERS

ROBERTO COLANINNO:
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Piaggio Group, Chairman of Immsi Group

Development of metro areas, population growth, the mobility of people and goods, the environment and quality of life. These are just some of the issues which have driven the Piaggio Group to take a “leap forward, thinking about what to offer in coming years”. And to do it through the creation of Piaggio Fast Forward: thus Roberto Colaninno revealed to the huge audience in Milan how PFF was formed – a team of brilliant students from Harvard and MIT, coordinated by Beth Altringer and Sasha Hoffman, which boasts an exceptional collection of international minds such as Nicholas Negroponte, Doug Brent, Jeff Linnell, Jeffrey Schnapp and Gregg Lyn. “It is a great satisfaction for me to see so many of you here,” the speaker began. “I would like to tell you about what we have done, our eagerness and emotions, and tell you about something which was born in a simple manner. The most difficult things to do are often the simplest. We found ourselves together with some friends one day, and we started talking about Piaggio, and what we have done. And suddenly we found ourselves on the one hand with great expectations, and on the other with real fear ... But if we work together we can come up with extraordinary things.”

“I started off thinking about my personal experiences, and about the things I have done ... Some people told me I was mad. But if I was twenty again I wouldn't hesitate to do more! I thought, let's get together (referring to the “brains” which make up PFF, ed), you have great minds, incredible experience – let's think about things which are out of the ordinary and which will come to pass in the future. You are the authors of the future. We are starting a journey called Piaggio Fast Forward, which we have situated in Cambridge, Mass, which is at the heart of technology and the future. This idea of working, of thinking, of studying together has formed, and it can lead to the creation of an idea which maybe no one has had before, an idea of great success ... This company, Piaggio Fast Forward, was formed in the hope that it will develop and will represent for everyone who is going to work with us the chance for satisfaction, enjoyment and profit. Confirmation of the fact that we mustn't be afraid of the future – what we have in front of us will bring great riches if we wish to develop it. This is what we want to do. We sat round a table talking about how to handle what will happen in 20-30 years' time, how the world will be, how to find solutions to the problems which will appear. Consider that in 20 years 80 million people will live in cities like Shanghai, that the world's population will have doubled, that there will be several billion cars and two-wheeled vehicles in circulation. Think about the events that occurred in the past and we will find the courage to bring about the visionary things that we are thinking about and studying today. The future is changing, and you young people will be the main players.” When asked: “How did you convince figures of this calibre to work with Piaggio Fast Forward?”, Roberto Colaninno answered: “I have always had extreme ideas, and when they are accompanied by desire and enthusiasm they generate interest, and so I was able to get them interested. And when I talked to them, I realised that they are more curious than I am!”

NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE:
Co-founder of MIT Media Lab, Professor of Media Technology at MIT

Nicholas Negroponte is the co-founder (with Jerome B. Wiesner) of the MIT Media Lab (1985), which he directed for its first 20 years. A graduate of MIT, Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer-aided design and has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1966. He gave the first TED talk in 1984, as well as 13 since. He is author of the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages. In 2005 he founded the non-profit One Laptop per Child, which deployed $1 billion of laptops for primary education in the developing world. In the private sector, Negroponte served on the board of directors of Motorola (for 15 years) and was general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in digital technologies for information and entertainment. He has personally provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies, including Zagats and Wired magazine.

JEFFREY SCHNAPP:
Co-director Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Professor at Harvard University

Jeffrey is co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and the founder-director of metaLAB (at) Harvard, a knowledge and technology design studio and conceptual foundry dedicated to exploring and expanding the frontiers of networked culture. Professor in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at the Graduate School of Design, former holder of the Pierotti Chair at Stanford University and participant in several Bay Area startups, he is a leading international figure in the digital media field, has led a number of pioneering software development and design projects, and is the author of an influential corpus of publications that includes twenty-five books and hundreds of essays. In addition to widespread coverage in the international press, Schnapp's research has received support from leading foundations such as John Simon Guggenheim, the National Science Foundation, Getty, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Hewlett, and Knight. His work in the domains of design, digital arts, and curatorial practice includes collaborations with the Triennale di Milano, the Cantor Center for the Visual Arts, the Wolfsonian-FIU, and the Canadian Center for Architecture.

GREG LYNN:
Innovative designer, founder of Greg Lynn FORM, Professor at Yale University

For the last 30 years Greg Lynn has been at the intersection of the digital and physical in architecture. He is the founder of Greg Lynn FORM where in addition to award winning buildings he has designed industrial objects in production with companies like Swarovski, Alessi and Vitra.
As the Design Advisor of the Palo Alto retailer Curbside he is responsible for the company’s physical identity. He was awarded the Golden Lion at the 11th Venice Biennale of Architecture and returns to the American Pavilion for a second time in 2016 where he will represent the United States again. He has received the American Academy of Arts & Letters Architecture Award and is a Fellow of United States Artists. Time Magazine named him one of 100 of the most innovative people in the world for the 21st century. Forbes Magazine named him one of the world’s ten most influential architects. He is a Studio Professor at UCLA, o. Univ. Professor at Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien and Davenport Visiting Professor at Yale University. He is the author of eight books.

DOUG BRENT:
Vice-president of Technology Innovation at Trimble

Doug Brent joined Trimble as vice president of Technology Innovation in July 2011. Mr. Brent has a twenty-five year record of management and leadership in high technology companies in Silicon Valley. Prior to Trimble, Mr. Brent served as Chief Operating Officer at ICANN from 2006 to 2010. Prior to his role at ICANN, he was the Chief Executive Officer of Packet Design Inc. from 2002 to 2005. Before Packet Design, Mr. Brent was vice president of engineering at Andes Networks, and vice president of engineering at Whistle Communications. When IBM acquired Whistle, he joined IBM as general manager for small business services, Global Small Business Division. Mr. Brent has also held executive and engineering management positions at Taligent (an Apple/IBM/HP joint venture) and Apple Computer. He has a B.A. from University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California.

BETH ALTRINGER:
Psychologist, designer, faculty at Harvard’s Engineering & Design schools

Beth Altringer is based at Harvard, where she runs an applied lab studying desirability in product and service design experiences via multi-sensory, emotional, cognitive and social elements. She has worked with Kering, Gucci Group, Puma, Swarovski, One Leap, the City of Cape Town, and others.
Altringer has a PhD in Organizational Behavior from Cambridge University, where she developed a model explaining innovation performance differences based on fieldwork inside 11 country offices of creative organizations like IDEO and J. Walter Thompson and their clients. Previously, Altringer studied architecture at University of Cape Town, sustainable design and the Olympics at Barcelona School of Architecture as a Fulbright, Human Computer Interaction at Stanford as a visiting scholar, and design at MIT as a postdoc. She holds faculty roles at the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Graduate School of Design, and Berkman Center for Internet & Society.

SASHA HOFFMAN:
Co-founder of Fuzzy Compass, Active member of the Boston entrepreneurship ecosystem

Sasha Hoffman is the co-founder and CEO of Fuzzy Compass, a travel startup turning the world's top travel influencers into modern-day travel agents. Prior to that, she was Head of Business Development for Plastiq, a venture-backed payments startup. Prior to that, she worked as an investment banker in the technology group at Goldman Sachs, Barclays Capital and Lehman Brothers, where she worked on transactions worth more than $100 billion including several highprofile IPOs and M&A deals for such clients as Facebook, Yelp, and SanDisk. Sasha is the Global Ambassador for Wanderful (Women in Travel) and part of Phocuswright’s 2015 Class of 35 under 35. She is passionate about tech and social entrepreneurship and is an active member of the community. She is part of the Board of BUILD Boston, the Overseers Board of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Massachusetts Bay, a TechStars mentor, an instructor at General Assembly, Youth CITIES, and the Startup Institute, is part of the Future Leaders Group of MITX, and guest lecture at Northeastern University.

INSIDE THE EVENT: THE COMPLETE VIDEO

INFO:
www.theshapeofthingstocome.net