Post Event - "Digital Innovation" - Shanghai, October 13th

On October 13th The China-Italy Chamber of Commerce (CICC) in cooperation with the Association of Italian Academics in China (AAIIC) and with the Support of the Consulate General of the Republic of Italy in Shanghai and of the Ministry for Environment, Land and Sea Protection of Italy successfully held the Seminar “Digital Innovation: The Italian Experience” at the Tongji University. Detailed program PDF on the link at the end of the page.

The seminar session was opened by CICC Vice Chairman Valtero Canepa and AAIIC Chairman Ivan Cardillo.

The speakers involved were Alessandro Antonicelli from ClioEDU, Lucio Angelo Antonelli -Director Astronomical Observatory Monte Porzio Catone, Luca Carpinelli from Florentia Village, Wallace Bie Chao from Comau (FCA Group), Filippo Fabrocini from Beijing University of Science and Technology, Charles Fang from Magneti Marelli, Giovanni Moroni from Tongji University, Rosanna Terminio from Asecorp China.

Considering the importance of the event, the Consul General of Italy in Shanghai, Michele Cecchi took part with a speech, underlining the importance of Big Data Management and describing the introduction in Italy of many new updates in terms of Free Wi-Fi for citizens.

The opening panel of the seminar was on the Internet of Things (IoT). The first presenter has been Alessandro Antonicelli, with a speech on IoT in Italy, “The Italy of Things”, reporting on lessons learned, main actors involved and with a final exploration of two case studies in IoT and IoT-based educational initiatives in Italy. Charles Fang then shifted from IoT applications in education to the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), where four dimensions of IIoT were first examined and then an introductory illustration of IoT applications to implement MM Industrial 4.0 in four main areas was given.

The second panel has been dedicated to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Robotics (AI,ML,&R). The first speaker was Filippo Fabrocini, his contribution was the talk “Human and Machine Learning: What machines can learn from the human mind and what humans can learn from machines” which stressed the importance of keeping focus on the laws of learning systems, of an interdisciplinary approach, and offered several examples showing the importance of context-dependency when talking about machine learning. The discussion of this session then moved to the presentation of Wallace Bie and the “HUMANfacturing approach to industry 4.0”, i.e. the idea of blending human-robot collaboration to create value withan integrated series of products and solutions.

The third panel on Big-Data was introduced by the first speech of Angelo Antonelli (Astronomically Big Data), with a historical view on how Astronomy since its beginning a Big-Data factory has been. Then a presentation of the behavior of astronomical observational data from the past towards the future, and the challenging perspectives of increasing amounts of data and on the interesting perspectives of an increasing involvement of AI into their management and analysis. The second part of the panel welcomed Luca Carpinelli (Marketing application of Big Data) who, in his own words, shifted the discussion on Big-Data “from the stars to the stores”, with the message that everything we do is increasingly leaving a digital trace which can be used and analyzed by companies to get richer and better insights and make smarter decisions. The talk introduced the audience to real cases of Big Data application and best practice to turn complex data into value.

The fourth and final panel hosted the two final speeches. Giovanni Moroni’s “Technological Convergence in Industry” examined the convergence and application of technologies based on technologies that can integrate more and more the real and virtual world by transferring sensorial data into digital information and vice versa, to improve the control and management of industrial plants. Rosanna Terminio explored the Impact of AI and Intelligent Robots in the working environment and how this phenomenon can increase anxiety, uncertainty, and a sense of inadequacy compared to the intelligent technology and co-bots in a more disruptive way than in the past technological revolutions. The talk stressed the importance of workers re-qualification to improve workers skills matching towards the ever-changing new demand of labor.

At the end of the seminar, there was a Q&A session which saw several questions from the audience about the many topics discussed throughout the whole 5 hours whole afternoon presentations. The Artificial Intelligence and its Impact on Labor Market and the presentation of new Intelligence Supports by Comau had the greatest attention from the audience, witnessed by the large amount of questions during the Q&A.

AAIIC and CICC would like to thank the local committee composed by Alberto Batinti, the scientific committee, composed by Denis Bastieri, Valtero Canepa, and Francesco Zonta, all the speakers, the moderators Denis Bastieri and Valtero Canepa, SICES at Tongji University for the venue, and all the participants for the successful outcome of the event. 

Best regards,

CICC TEAM