Visions from the future: the new edition of Focus Live, the popular science festival to illustrate the horizons of human knowledge. The contribution of the Scuola Sant'Anna among talks, installations and interactive experiences

The Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna confirms its participation in Focus Live, the science popularisation festival to be held at the "Leonardo da Vinci" Museum of Science and Technology in Milan from 3 to 5 November.The theme for the 2023 edition is Visions from the Future. Around key words (and concepts) such as environment, science, sustainability, space, technology, health and medicine, the Festival will create a living laboratory, a space to involve the public in interacting with science and scientists, to change the way we see the world, science and technology, and to illustrate, in popular language, the horizons of human knowledge.

All initiatives involving the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Talks

• 'Artificial Intelligence enters Parliament', talk with Alberto Mazzoni, assistant professor at the BioRobotics Institute, and Francesca Biondi Dal MonteFrancesca Biondi Dal Monte, associate professor at the Dirpolis Institute (Friday 3 November at 6.45 p.m.). Can an algorithm predict MPs' group changes? Can artificial intelligence predict how a legislature will end or how an MP will vote? Thanks to the growing availability of open data on the institutional websites of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic, the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna has been able to analyse the last legislatures and develop an Artificial Intelligence algorithm capable of predicting an MP's change of party many weeks in advance.
• 'Neurotechnologies to get back on your feet' talk with Silvestro Micera, full professor at the BioRobotics Institute (Saturday 4 November at 11 a.m.). Returning to walking after severe paralysis is no longer a miracle. Techniques to reactivate the neurons that move muscles in paraplegics are making great strides. And Italy is at the forefront.
• 'Hands-on' talk with Christian Cipriani, Marta Gherardini and Valerio Ianniciello from the Biorobotics Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa and Daniel Bivaschi, a volunteer in the first clinical trial (Saturday 4 November at 7.20 pm). The story of Myki, an innovative project by the Institute of BioRobotics to create a hand prosthesis that is controlled and perceived naturally thanks to an innovative system of magnets. On stage, researchers and, of course, the robotic hand, super-light, jointed and able to reproduce all the grips of a normal hand.
• ‘Toccare con mano’ talk con dell’Istituto di Biorobotica della Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa e Daniel Bivaschi, volontario alla prima sperimentazione clinica (sabato 4 novembre alle ore 19,20). La storia di Myki, un innovativo progetto dell’Istituto di BioRobotica per realizzare una protesi di mano controllata e percepita in modo naturale grazie a un innovativo sistema di magneti. Sul palco i ricercatori e ovviamente la mano robotica, super leggera, snodabile e in grado di riprodurre tutte le prese di una mano normale.
• 'Crazy Heart' talk with Vincenzo Lionetti, associate professor at the Healh Science interdisciplinary research centre (Sunday 5 November at 2.45 pm). The heart is an intelligent machine, programmed to the thousandth of a second. It beats two billion 800 million times in a lifetime and its functioning has attracted the interest of scholars since the time of Aristotle, although its ability to dialogue with the brain continues to be a mystery. With an original approach, Vincenzo Lionetti will focus on some lesser known and taken for granted aspects of our heart, dwelling on the latest research conducted in his laboratory.

Installations and experiences

• 'Robot Drawing Beautiful Portraits' is the installation by the Institute of Mechanical Intelligence showing a robot drawing a portrait of a visitor. To an outside observer, the robot appears to schematically reproduce the basic features of a person's portrait by drawing on a sheet of paper according to a procedure identical, in terms of gestures, to that performed by a human painter/drawer. For the Institute of Mechanical Intelligence, Salvatore D'Avella and Alessandro Nicoletti will be present. 
• 'Space earthworms' is the installation by a team of researchers from the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Cesare Stefanini, Chiara Pucciariello, Donato Romano) on how earthworms could make the lunar soil fertile and similar to the earth's soil for the growth of plants and thus produce fresh food for astronauts.