2012 was a busy year for the Bassetti Foundation. In this post we take a look back at some of the major events.

December saw the release of the latest publication in the Bassetti Foundation Books series. A Handbook for responsible innovation is a collection of articles published by Jonathan Hankins over the last 3 years.
Topics covered include responsibility in innovation, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, access to reliable scientific information and bioethics. The release marked a change in foundation publication policy as for the first time the handbook is available for download through Amazon.

November was an extremely busy month for all involved in the Foundation.

The Bocconi Economics University in Milan hosted the most recent in the series of Bassetti Foundation Lectures. Michael Bruch from Allianz presented the lecture, and Alfonso Gambardella, Jonathan Hankins and Fabian Muniesa constituted the panel for comments. The event was well attended and received considerable national and international press coverage.

November also saw the presentation in the Bassetti Foundation Conference suite of the first of three volumes on responsible innovation published by the Center for Innovation and Economic Development. The event was conducted in Italian and videos of each intervention are available here.
See this article for more information about the book (also in Italian).

This October the Bassetti Foundation once more participated in the Mind the Bridge Venture Camp held in Milan. President Piero Bassetti delivered an address and a special mention to Reputeka, for their work with artisans and their project of partnering creativity, responsibility and technology. See the links in this article (in Italian) to learn more.

In July Cristina Grasseni represented the Foundation at the European Association of Social Anthropologists conference (EASA) in Paris. Grasseni participated in a panel entitled Who’s Responsible acting as discussant alongside the panel organizers. Further information and links to the papers can be found here.

May saw the foundation participate in the International Scientific Convention of Neuroethics in Padova Italy. The Foundation hosted live streaming of the event as well as co-sponsoring the event, and video of the entire proceedings (some in Italian) is available here.

May also saw Jonathan Hankins attend the Architectures for life conference at Harvard university on behalf of the Foundation. The conference revolved around the expansion and exploitation of home DNA testing and genetic screening, with the opening lecture delivered by Anna Wojcicki, CEO of 23andMe. A series of reports begins here.

April saw the return to the Milan stage of the show “Mani Grandi, Senza Fine” by Laura Curino, part of the Foundation project entitled Milan Design, Achieving the Improbable. Once more the show was well received, with both nights selling out. Learn more about the project here (in Italian).

In the same month the Foundation also promoted a panel at the International Public Communication of Science and Technology Conference in Florence. The panel raised the question of whether the communication of science should not also be “responsible”, within the framework entitled “Quality, Honesty and Beauty” chosen by the conference organizers.

Margherita Fronte represented the Foundation and further information and video is available through a series of her posts that begin here.

In March President Piero Bassetti delivered a lecture at the Domus Academy in Milan in which he addressed many of the issues surrounding responsibility in innovation. Video of the event and a transcription of his speech are available here.

March also saw Jonathan Hankins represent the foundation at the presentation of the MOSE project held at MIT in Cambridge Massachusetts. Mose is a system of gates whose aim is to reduce the problems of flooding currently experienced by the city of Venice. Read more in this report.

We hope that this selection of this year’s involvement in conferences, conventions and other events gives the reader an all round overview of the work of the Bassetti Foundation, and we convey all our best wishes for the forthcoming year to every reader.