Inaugurated the academic year 2022-2023 at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, the first event in presence after two years of pandemic and distance learning, as part of the Future Sight event that celebrates the 40 years of the university (1982-2022 ). This year the University of Rome Tor Vergata turns 40 and is celebrating them with a great event, ‘Future Sight’, from 24 to 28 October. Five days of great involvement for the university and its main stakeholders, with over 70 celebratory events, 4 thematic evenings and more than 300 guests to weave a story that testifies to the commitment and importance of the 40-year-old University research of excellence and innovative teaching. And the ministers of Health, University and Research, Orazio Schillaci and Anna Maria Bernini also participated to celebrate the inauguration of the Academic Year, and generational solidarity was among the main issues addressed. The role of teachers in this process of exchange of knowledge and guidance of young people is absolutely central, it emerged from the day of celebration. “Enhancing skills, listening to students: they cannot be just words, they must be covered”, said Minister Bernini. “The initiatives organized in these days – she added – represent contemporaneity and the strong ability to build study paths adhering to the needs of the students today”. “It is up to us – Bernini continued – to make new choices to give students back their confidence in the value of knowledge in which we strongly believe. A belief that must be transformed into actions and above all in training courses”. And finally, from Minister Bernini, a message arrived to the students: “Use every initiative that the universities offer you to be able to know, to listen, to be part of a larger community. Go abroad and then return, to bring the suggestions to Italy. and the skills you have acquired “. The Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, in his speech, stated that “the Minister of University and Research, Anna Maria Bernini will be attentive to the world of research” remembering that Bernini “is a professor at the University of Bologna and I am sure that for all universities and research institutions will make a contribution of modernity and growth based on competence “. The Dean of the University and pro tempore Rector, Roberto Longo, underlined in his Prolusion as a look to the future for “Tor Vergata” and from a perspective of generational solidarity. “We are called – he said – to face challenges of no small importance. The warming of the climate, with all the consequences of an environmental but also economic and social nature; the energy crisis certainly deriving from the war but also from the speculation of large companies and international finance, without forgetting the responsibilities of the bureaucratic apparatuses that have seriously slowed down if not prevented the advance of alternative energies “. (continues) “And again, the threat of new variants and pandemics that – Longo pointed out – could further endanger the health of millions of people; the war provoked by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia two thousand kilometers from our borders with the human tragedies that are before our eyes, but also the many hidden or endemic wars that drag on with their anonymous victims completely neglected by the media and ignored by international public opinion. Famines and conditions of extreme poverty, violence and oppression in which millions of human beings still live, especially children and women, in the most disadvantaged areas of the planet. Without forgetting the almost six million Italians in absolute poverty, according to the latest dramatic data provided by Caritas “. Longo noted that “In the face of all this, one can only react by hoping for an ever more active and proactive commitment of all the components of our society. As a University of the Studies of Rome Tor vergata we are convinced of the importance of combining the cornerstones of university commitment – research, teaching and third mission – with the needs of society, businesses and the world of production in an ever more effective way. And we are strongly committed to the digital transition, and to artificial intelligence applied to the emergencies of our time: from protecting the environment to combating global warming, from the development of alternative energy sources to the fight against viruses, up to the prevention of new possible pandemics. We believe that by preparing young people to face these challenges with the necessary skills, not only will we certainly facilitate their integration into the world of work, but we will continue to fulfill our important function as a bridge between knowledge and society, between universities and business “.” It will be. thus, it is possible – continued Longo – to offer the entrepreneurial realities trained and competent professional figures required by various production sectors and we will be able to ensure our students an effective use of the degree on the job market. This will be the best way to conclude the Tor Vergata 40 celebrations, in memory of those exciting days, when, thanks to the commitment and determination of a few courageous colleagues, the first academic year of this University. Today, forty years later, the best wish we can make is to live the academic year we are inaugurating and the others to come, with the same enthusiasm and the same foresight of 40 years ago, in the awareness that our commitment can contribute, for the part that belongs to us, to the growth of the territory and to the training of many young people with whom we are building a future full of challenges to be overcome, to overcome the difficulties of this particular moment of transition and start a new phase of development in compliance with environmental compatibility and in view of a greater economic and social balance “. (continues) Finally, Longo assured that” at the conclusion of the forty-year anniversary of “Tor Vergata” we want to ideally sign a solemn pact of generational solidarity between teachers and students which ensures on the one hand the maximum availability in the transfer of knowledge and knowledge and on the other the maximum commitment in the construction of a world n and which science and culture are at the service of citizens in a perspective of growth and well-being for all “. The inauguration also saw the awarding of the Honoris Causa Doctorate in Electronic Engineering to Professor Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli, with a doctoral thesis entitled “From punch cards to artificial intelligence: a perspective of life lived”. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is a distinguished Italian academic who has held important roles abroad, is currently Edgar L. and Harold H. Buttner Chair in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been, among the other, also Research Scientist at Ibm TJ Watson Research Center and Visiting Professor at MIT. The Italian computer scientist is the author of more than 1,000 scientific articles with h-index 124, of 19 books on integrated systems and design methodologies and tools, and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Sciences of Turin. Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has received numerous awards for his scientific activity including the James Clerk Maxwell Medal for “fundamental contributions that have had an exceptional impact on the development of electronics and related fields” and the Kauffman Award for the pioneering vision that led to creation of Electronic Design Automation. Professor Sangiovanni-Vincentelli received the title Honoris Causa from the hands of Professor Longo, after the presentation by prof. Gian Carlo Cardarilli director of the Electronic Engineering Department of the University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. Finally, the University reminds us that the event has been made accessible to deaf people thanks to the service offered by Caris in collaboration with the European Academy of the Deaf – Lis School of Interpreters and Performers directed by Laura Santarelli.
