On 18 November 2015 at 16:00, the Board of Directors of the Associazione Stati Generali dell'Innovazione in Rome, Via Giovanni de' Calvi 6 met at the home of the Secretary Paolo Russo to discuss the following agenda:
- Announcements from the President
- Meeting date. Decisions.
- Adherence to the DiCultHer educational center “Lazio-ISIA”. Decisions.
- Updating of the internal regulation. Discussion.
- Miscellaneous and possible.
At the invitation of the President, the Secretary carries out the roll call of those present:
- Flavia Marzano (President): Present
- Giuseppe Iacono (Vice-President): Present (from the discussion of point 3 of the reorganized agenda)
- Paolo Russo (Secretary): Present
- Emma Pietrafesa (Treasurer): Present
- Ugo Bonelli: Present
- Frieda Brioschi: Present (online)
- Marco Calvo: Present (from the discussion of point 3 of the reorganized agenda)
- Rosa De Vivo: Present (online)
- Piero Dominici: Present (from the discussion of point 3 of the reorganized agenda)
- Alessandra Donnini: Absent
- Sergio Farruggia: Present
- Marco Fratoddi: Present (from the discussion of point 2 of the reorganized agenda)
- Myriam Ines Giangiacomo: Present (from the discussion of point 3 of the reordered agenda)
- Nicola Guarino: Absent
- Carlo Infante: Present (from the discussion of point 3 of the reorganized agenda)
- Tiziana Medici: Present (online)
- Pasquale Popolizio: Present (online)
- Renzo Provedel: Present (online)
- Morena Ragone: Present (online)
- Maria Pia Rossignaud: Absent
- Nicoletta Staccioli: Present
President Marzano opens the meeting by informing that she has no special communications and introducing the various topics of the day.
The Russian Secretary suggests a reversal of points 3 and 4 of the Agenda as he has been informed that various members of the Board will be able to join the meeting only later and deems it preferable to wait for them to discuss the points that require strategic decisions, while it is possible to deal immediately with the more technical points and simply share the final results of the discussion with those who will join later. The Board approves.
The President starts the discussion of the second item on the agenda, informing that at Executive level the date of the penultimate day of ForumPA's work has been identified in May as the most appropriate for scheduling the annual meeting. The decision was dictated by practical reasons to favor the physical presence of the greatest possible number of Members, taking advantage of the presence of many of them in Rome in those days. Brioschi observes that, however, in this way the Assembly would be crushed on its administrative aspect alone, while it would be desirable to be able to make it an occasion for meeting and socialising. He suggests finding a different date to organize an all-day event. After extensive discussion the Board unanimously agrees as follows:
The solution linked to ForumPa is approved as "default" if it is not possible to identify an alternative solution;
The Executive, on the basis of the experience of the previous year and considering that the 2016 Shareholders' Meeting will involve an even greater administrative effort as it is extraordinary for the renewal of offices, assesses that it is not able to correctly manage an extended event with the available human resources, but has nothing against setting it in a wider social event whose management is taken over by some Members. It was therefore decided to ask the Members - starting from the members of the Board - to formulate a proposal by the end of the current year to be submitted to the Board for approval. In the absence of this proposal or in case of rejection by the Board, the solution referred to in the previous point remains approved. Please note that the Assembly must be held by June 30th.
In any case, the responsibility for the organization of the Assembly and all its administrative acts rests with the Executive, as foreseen by the statutory obligations.
The members of the Executive present illustrate a proposal in view of the forthcoming renewal of offices during the following Assembly in order to stimulate participation, underline the nature of the office of Director as an actuator of the Association's policies and favor the definition of a shared strategy. It is proposed that each candidate for a role in the Executive or in the Board of Directors submit their candidacy publicly on the website between the end of the Membership Campaign at the end of March and the end of April, accompanied by a short CV and a project proposal or a function within the Association which he undertakes to carry out personally during his mandate. The focus on projects is a theme that the current executive intends to promote in addition to the already existing dissemination and lobbying activities to make it easier for members to join and to encourage communication by the association on the activities carried out. Furthermore, it is less difficult to attract financial resources around projects. The intention is thus to remedy two of the weaknesses shown by SGI in recent years. Some projects already started with the collaboration of various members are proposed to everyone's attention and everyone is invited to join or start new ones. To be considered, they must have the support of at least two Members. The active or start-up projects at the moment are:
- Regulatory proposal on free software (Referee: Marzano)
- Participation in Digital Cultural Heritage, Arts & Humanities School activities - Competition for schools "Crowddreaming: young people co-create digital culture" (Referee: Russo)
- Consult (Referent: Iacono)
- Participation in Digital Skills Coalition activities (Contact person: Iacono)
- Project "Vineyard 2.0" (Referee: Farruggia)
On this occasion, the Executive urges the Board to actively participate in the 2016 Members Campaign, focused on the value of SGI's mission, on the results achieved so far, on the projects mentioned above and on the pleasure of being together. With regard to this last point, the Board is informed of the decision to give new impetus to the organization of social events such as dinners and aperitifs.
Popolizio requires a list of Members organized by geographic area. The Secretary undertakes to extract it in a short time from the Members database.
Fratoddi stimulates widespread reflection among those present, sharing the concrete approach to projects, but also recalling that at the same time it is extremely important to keep alive and continuously renew a discussion on the mission and values of SGI.
Those present share the line that emerged from the extensive discussion so far and undertake to promote it.
We move on to the discussion of item 3 on the agenda and the President passes the floor to Morena Ragone and Frieda Brioschi to illustrate the proposed regulation for sponsorships and non-costly participations. The spirit is illustrated and also the detail in favor of those present who have not had time to examine the text. A discussion opens on the timing of the presentation of the requests, which leads to the suggestion of their reduction, but the maintenance of a margin of confidence sufficient to allow the volunteers who will take care of them to operate calmly. It is also agreed that, for transparency and for everyone's peace of mind, the WG always promptly notifies the Board of the outcome of the evaluation. The draft was approved unanimously with the proposed amendments. The Board proposes to the other drafters of the draft (Brioschi, Farruggia, Guarino) to continue to support Ragone in the management of the evaluations so as to be able to spread the activities sufficiently to make them manageable without excessive burdens on everyone's part.
The President proposes to move on to examining the fourth item on the agenda to decide whether to accept ISIA's invitation to join the educational pole it is organizing within the network for the Digital Cultural Heritage, Arts & Humanities School and which involves the following subjects:
• ISIA Rome Design
• Aeneas
• Digital world
• ASLERD
• National FIA
• Sapienza Communication Sciences (Prof. Morcellini)
• ITS Made in Italy
• LTBF (Irene Pivetti)
• Improda Law Firm
• Siotto Foundation
• Orvieto University Study Centre
• Creative industries - Rome Research Consortium (to be confirmed)
• Lazioinnova (to be confirmed)
• NABA Milan (to be confirmed)
Infante takes the floor as he believes that before evaluating this point it is important to re-examine the terms of the Association's involvement in DiCultHer School. Infante believes that the Network represents an important opportunity for SGI, but that the activities carried out so far within it are the result of personal choices of the Secretary, not shared, and that the projects carried out (Week of Digital Cultures and competition for schools "Crowddreaming : young people co-create digital culture) are confused and conditioned by serious conceptual and methodological errors. Infante complains that such projects were presented at the 9/11 US DiCultHer event, rather than simply announced as he requested, exposing the Association to negative feedback. However, he believes that the situation can be recovered if an optimization of the projects is carried out, for which he is available to collaborate.
The Secretary proceeds to summarize and clarify some terms of SGI's participation in the activities of the DiCultHer School and of his personal commitment. The actions carried out are in line with the mandate received upon joining the Network to enhance the role of SGI within it and are guided by four polar stars, already described last September in the document made available to those who have declared an interest in participate in "DiCultHer" projects. In summary, they are the validity of DiCultHer's mission, the possibility of approaching and involving young people and teenagers, the advantages in terms of visibility that SGI can obtain and the concrete possibility of collecting resources, being involved together with strong partners in tenders, which individually it would be nearly impossible to participate. On this last point, having received the request from the DiCultHer School - then still without official bodies - to intervene and present a proposal for a Program Agreement to the MIUR last August representing the entire Network can already be considered a success thanks to our transversality and agility. Operation carried out in record time on holidays for everyone with the help of Tiziana Medici, to whom thanks are due for her availability. If the AdP were approved, SGI would enrich its curriculum with an important agreement and would certainly enjoy some indirect benefit linked to the management of the funds - totally intended for the project - such as the establishment of a Technical Secretariat and the dimensioning of the budget in the next two years towards turnover adequate to support applications for individual requests for funding. The benefits of this participation immediately manifested themselves in the request from the University of Bari to play a similar role of facilitation for participation in a small call for tenders from the Bank of Italy. This supervision and support activity has borne excellent results: SGI has been assigned 3 coordination roles out of 14 available for over 50 organizations belonging to the Network. Specifically, the responsibility of the groups Communication (Russo), Gender Policies (Marzano) and Innovation, Creativity and Co-Creation (Infante in collaboration with Prof. Marti of UNISI). Communication is an aspect that certainly can and must be greatly improved, but which has not been overlooked: various information and invitations to participate via newsletter have been sent, articles have been published on the site, various members of the Board are already collaborating actively and with various others you are trying to build a path. It is an effort hampered by the voluntary nature of everyone's commitment, but one which has been constantly present for months. Regarding the external perception of SGI following these activities, the facts speak for themselves. Apart from the case of the aforementioned Program Agreement and the number of recognized coordination roles, the extent and quality of the space granted to SGI during the 9/11 event - broadcast live streaming by RAI Cultura - of faced with an extremely qualified assembly, the adhesion of more than 20 external volunteers to the association for the organization of the competition, and above all the request by ISIA to join their educational center as an immediate consequence of the presentation of the concept of the "digital monument" linked to the competition.
The Board takes note of Infante's observations and acknowledges the report of the Secretary, who is asked to proceed with the illustration of the contents of the ISIA proposal. Russo reports on the meeting he had with Giordano Bruno, director of the ISIA. Treasurer Pietrafesa was also present at the meeting and, albeit for fortuitous causes, another shareholder, Fulvio Ananasso. One of the key elements of DiCultHer School's mission is to encourage the creation of truly interdisciplinary educational centers centered on universities. The poles currently in formation have characteristics that are distinctly oriented towards teaching university students, not very similar to the mission of SGI. The "ISIA" hub, on the other hand, was born around the desire to create a "think-tank" primarily oriented towards the search for new ways and solutions in the design of digital processes in the world of cultural heritage, the arts and the humanities. For this reason, ISIA is trying to involve subjects with high skills in different and complementary sectors, also possessing a visionary and innovative drive and united by the desire to make young people grow, above all, awareness of their own role and responsibilities in building the immediate future and further. Naturally, didactic activities are also envisaged which, however, will come downstream of this research phase. Staccioli expresses his enthusiasm for the opportunity, but also his concern about the sustainability of the commitment with the resources available to the Association. He therefore asks whether it is already clear what commitment is required. Russo clarifies that SGI would be involved from the outset in the planning phase of the activities of the hub being established and that therefore, if on the one hand the required commitment is still difficult to quantify, on the other each participant is required to contribute according to possibilities and therefore we have the possibility to decide on an ongoing basis the commitment we want to donate to the initiative. The Board votes and approves membership of the Pole.
Since there was nothing else to discuss, the Chairman declared the meeting closed at 20.00.