Theeleventh edition of Vicenza Città Impresa,the spring edition of the Festival of Industrial Territories directed by Dario Di Vico, will be under the banner of the themes of economic recovery and the unknowns weighing on the near future.After the fall edition in Bergamo, the Festival will return to the Berici capital April 13-15. In a framework that sees the entire backbone from Turin to Trieste (including Emilia) growing at a high rate and some major Italian industrial groups leading large acquisitions abroad, the Festival will focus its attention on two fundamental factors. On the one hand, the characteristics of the transformation of the Italian industrial fabric, which sees companies facing the challenge of digitalization and all its implications on the world of work, and on the other hand, the unknowns generated on the international level by protectionist hypotheses resulting from the new season that sees the emergence, from the United States to Europe, of political formations that overcome the traditional right-left subdivisions.Discussing these will therefore be, above all, the protagonists of the recovery, that is, that business world that has been able to face and overcome the Great Crisis of 2008. In fact, the festival will open with a speech by Giuseppe Bono, ad of Fincantieri, who will discuss “The recovery of the territories and the ambitions of Italian industry” (Friday, April 13, 10 a.m., Palazzo Leoni Montanari). Also on the opening day, after a keynote lectio magistralis by jurist Sabino Cassese on “State and Business. Where bureaucratic bottlenecks originate,” the topic will be debated by Giovanni Costa, professor emeritus of the University of Padua; Luciano Vescovi, president of Confindustria Vicenza; and Daniele Vaccarino, national president of Cna (Friday 13, 11:45 a.m., Teatro Olimpico). Several meetings will be held in the afternoon: most notable is “Italy’s budget and the report card from Brussels: taxes, spending review and investments,” which will see former commissioner for spending review, Carlo Cottarelli, compared with the chief economist of Intesa Sanpaolo, Gregorio De Felice, and of Confindustria, Andrea Montanino (Friday 13, 4:30 p.m., Confindustria Vicenza) .
Another key event will be “Flows and Places / The Great Region of A4,” featuring Atlantia’s CEO Giovanni Castellucci, Italo’s CEO Flavio Cattaneo, the president of the Port of Trieste, Zeno D’Agostino, and Paolo Perulli, professor of Economic Sociology and director of the Master in Local Development at the University of Eastern Piedmont (Friday 13, 6 p.m., Confindustria Vicenza). There will be many other weighty appointments, such as “Keyword: Commitment. The Decalogue of Federmeccanica,” organized by the same association, in which president Alberto Dal Poz will participate. The first day will then close at the Teatro Olimpico, where Eataly’s CEO Andrea Guerra and Stefano Micelli, professor of Economics and Business Management at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, will reason together with the ‘champion entrepreneurs’ on “Champion enterprises and the challenges of made in Italy” (9 p.m.). The day of Saturday 14 will open again in the setting of the Olympic Theater for a meeting with Giovanni Alleva, president of Istat, on the theme ‘The Numbers of Labor’ (10 a.m.). Two meetings on ‘4.0’ will be held at the same time. Cna Vicenza will organize a debate on ‘4.0 a misura dei Piccoli,’ involving Gaetano Bergami, administrator Bmc Air Filter and president IR4I Cluster Tecnologico Aerospaziale Emilia Romagna, Marco Bettiol,professor of Internet Marketing at the University of Padua, Rosario Pingaro,president of Convergenze, and Rosanna Ventrella, Sole Director of SYS-TEK and president Cna Impresa Donna Piemonte (Palazzo Leoni Montanari, 10 a.m.).
Federmeccanica, on the other hand, will compare Simona Capasso, vice-president of the association; Laura Dalla Vecchia, president of the Mechanics, Metallurgy and Electronics Section of Confindustria Vicenza and president Polidoro; Martina Gianecchini, professor of Human Resources Management at the University of Padua; Simonetta Iarlori, vice-president of Federmeccanica and chief People, Organization and Transformation Officer of Leonardo; and Francesca Re David, Fiom-Cgil general secretary in the meeting “The (Fourth) Industrial Revolution is a Woman” (10 a.m., Palazzo Chiericati). Journalist and writer Gian Antonio Stella will then have the task of covering 50 years of history in “From Valdagno in ’68 to Zaia’s Veneto” (11:30 a.m., Olympic Theater.” Three highlights of the afternoon. It starts with “Inequality and Democracy”: the director of the Città Impresa Festival, Dario Di Vico, will discuss it with Francesco Billari, professor of Demography and dean of faculty at Bocconi University, and Andrea Brandolini, director of the Statistical Analysis Service of the Bank of Italy (3 p.m., Palazzo Trissino). The director of TG La7, Enrico Mentana, will then be the protagonist of a question time with a group of young people on “Social networks and the old TV” (4:30 p.m., Teatro Olimpico). Another hot topic will be the debate “The Trump unknown and the war on tariffs,” with a discussion between Andrea Goldstein, senior economist at the OECD, and two entrepreneurs: Gianpietro Benedetti, president of Danieli, and Alberto Bombassei,president of Brembo (6 p.m., Teatro Olimpico). On the closing day of the Città Impresa festival, Italy’s political prospects will instead be the topic of “Has the Third Republic Really Begun?” a meeting with Corriere della Sera editor Luciano Fontana, with La7’s Alessandra Sardoni (Sunday 15, 11:30 a.m., Teatro Olimpico).
The conclusion of the Vicenza festival will be dedicated instead to culture, with “Stables, Churches and Sheds. Writers tell the Northeast,” with a debate between Romolo Bugaro, lawyer and author of Effetto domino (Einaudi), Giovanni Montanaro, lawyer, Corriere del Veneto journalist and author of Guardami negli occhi (Feltrinelli) and Gianmario Villalta, poet, artistic director of pordenonelegge and author of Bestia da latte (Mondadori) (Palazzo Chiericati, 5 p.m.).
