EDITORIAL

T

he last month of the year is the one in which we take stock, and look for lessons to be learnt and perspectives with which to face the future. On looking back on this 2014 and everything I have been in contact with, I would say that the most notable event from which to draw vital sap and ideas for designing the future was the TEDex 2014, held at the end of October at the Politeama theater in Lecce.

TEDex is an event which started off in California and by now takes place in many different countries, where great minds and people who have achieved extraordinary things come together, full-flow, in a public meeting and relate, briefly, their story and their experiences. The aim is to divulge ideas of value. The credit for having brought it to Lecce, for the third consecutive year, goes to Gabriella Morelli and Vito Margiotta, with Laura Casciotti co-ordinating. This year’s meeting was dedicated to the future. Eighteen amazing speakers, of national and international fame, spoke of economics, science, business, food, art, theater, social commitment, human and civil rights, agriculture, new technologies, and communication. Winning stories and proposals that captured the attention of the audience non-stop, for more than five hours. All of them worthy of mention, but, to give synthesis, one of the inspiring elements of TEDex, its due, I cite just three contributions that struck me particularly.

First of all, that of Alexander Aleinikoff, vice High Commissioner of the United Nations for Refugees, who spoke about a tragic reality which is rarely in the media spotlight: that of the refugee camps, where refugees often spend their whole lives. Expelled or fleeing from their own countries because of war, famine or political or religious persecution, they are people who have had to abandon their work, their families and their communities, only to end up in tent-cities in foreign lands, in deserts or on the outskirts of cities; and in these non-places, without a status, without a homeland, without a “future”, they often spend decades or all their lives. Aleinikoff’s message was intended to stir sleeping consciences or those focused exclusively on tending their own garden.

The contribution by the astrophysicist, Amedeo Balbi, was memorable, for the images of the galaxies located at sidereal distances from our planet, as well as for the concept of “horizons that are withdrawing” because of knowledge, in astronomy like in whichever other field. The more we know, the more we discover the vastness of what we don’t know. A question of consciousness this time too, the consciousness of our limits, but in the joyous knowledge, on looking at the images of the infinite space that astronomic studies address, of how much genius there is in human beings and how wrong it is to consider “evil”, all the time, to the exclusion of everything else.

Interrupted by countless rounds of applause, like no other speech, was the one given by Harry Potter of Vicenza, fifteen-year-old Cesare Cacitti. He is the young genius, with a certain resemblance to the famous wizard, who at the age of thirteen built his first 3D printer by himself, out of pieces he found in his garage! He is continuing with his studies, his piano-playing, and his sports, but also develops his extraordinary capacities non-stop, with the help of organizations that support young digital talents. He seduced the audience by telling of his life and experiences with simplicity, assertiveness and humor. His dream is to achieve the creation of tele-transportation. His motto? Work hard, dream big.

Someone also cited a phrase attributed to the great American writer and composer, John Cage: “Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make”.

It’s a beautiful phrase, and it could be an appeal, in yet another year that draws to an end, to free us from the fear of making mistakes, to exhort us to embrace wholeheartedly the only philosophy that can bear fruit in every field: that of action, that of pragmatism.