Wine, great food, networking and ideas for tomorrow

The Tenimenti d’Alessandro farm in Cortona was the setting for the networking event organised on October 16th by AIdAM, involving not only the associated companies but also several other companies from the territory and elsewhere that are indeed the backbone of the process automation sector in Italy. AIdAM, which next year will celebrate its twentieth anniversary, now has 70 member companies that generate an overall turnover of more than 600 million euro and employ more than 2,000 people. Illustrating AIdAM’s growth plan – mainly based on innovation, education, communication and marketing, services and aggregation – President Michele Viscardi spoke about the importance of people, “the real added value for our companies”, he said.

The projects in education
In addition to the project of a book about mechatronics, in collaboration with the Hoepli publishing house and intended for students of both technical institutes and ITS, another project shared with the MIUR (the Ministry of Education, Universities and Research) is underway. It aims at making school shape the human capital of the future according the actual needs of companies.
“We cannot think of facing this issue without working to bring the worlds of education and business closer”, said Antonio Scinicariello from MIUR speaking at the event. The agreement between the MIUR and AIdAM, signed last June 4th, led to the definition of new guidelines and the launch of four case studies with the following institutes: “Galileo” in Rome, “Monaco” in Cosenza as well as “Paleocapa” and “Marconi” in Bergamo. The project will be presented to institutes all over Italy by the end of the year.

Aggregation and promotion
AIdAM also reaffirmed the association’s commitment to supporting the Italian Smart Factory Cluster, particularly in the line of action that concerns people enhancement. The commitment of the Cluster, as explained by its president Gianluigi Viscardi, is to develop and provide proposals that may guide industrial policy in Italy thanks to the participation of entrepreneurs, academics and institutions. The results achieved so far are encouraging, as are the promising projects for the near future. In terms of promotion and marketing, the vice president of Messe Frankfurt Italia, Francesca Selva, announced that the next edition of SPS Italia, the national benchmark for industrial automation, will have even more space for mechatronics, robotics and process automation, after the success of the Know-how 4.it area last year.