Today we are talking about future, youth, technology,
but also tradition, know-how, art and beauty.
Today I’ll take you to a factory
and tell you about the incredible opportunity
that lies at the border between mechanics and digital.
It was the early 80s,
and I still remember my Saturday mornings with my dad in the workshop.
It was a mechanical workshop, or rather a metal-mechanical one,
and they used to build complicated details for the textile and areonautics industry.
As we walked through the workshop
I remember a dark environment, an acrid smell of oil all around me,
my dad running everywhere
giving out instructions to whoever crossed his path.
I remember busy men with big and strong hands,
their heads inside the machines, inside their dark outfit.
I also remember great order and cleanliness –
my father was so keen on tidiness.
I remember really precise mechanical details;
they looked like jewels, artworks:
the know-how.
Let’s now take a step forward:
it’s 2017 and we are living
in the so called Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0 –
— a historical time that is marked
by blurrier and much wider borders than in the previous ones.
Let’s track them back together.
The first one, in the 18th century,
introduced the use of steam to power factory equipment.
The second one, in the early 20th century,
saw electricity, chemistry, petroleum, mass production and assembly lines
– Ford, in a word.
The third one, in the early 1970s,
brought along electronics, computers, the first robots and factory automation.
This fourth one is instead substantially marked
by the connection between physical and digital systems.
And it differs from the previous ones in at least five major ways.
The first one is speed;
the first industrial revolution reached a tipping point in 80 years,
the second one made it in 50 years, the third 30,
and the fourth is hitting us like a tsunami.
Multidimensionality and width,
which refers not only to single technological dimensions
but to many of them in acceleration and in combination with each other;
it refers not only to a factory’s internal processes,
but also, increasingly, to products, commodity chains, business models —
it’s all interconnected.
Democratization:
the cost of access to these technologies is dropping dramatically,
it is no longer reserved solely to big companies
but to an ever-growing public.
Human capital is at the very center of this fourth revolution,
much more than in the first three.
It is a cultural revolution, before a technological one.
Like any other field, mechanics is also affected
by this big challenge and big transformations.
Despite a world-wide crisis,
mechanics remain a cornerstone of the Italian industry,
which remains Europe’s second biggest manufacturer,
fifth in the world for added value.
Mechanics alone accounts for 48% of Italian exports
and 82% of high and mid-high technology production.
We, people in the field, are at the core of this fourth transformation.
We witness the convergence between mechanics, digital and electronics,
not only in the processes, but more and more into the end products.
We call the product of this convergence “mechatronics”.
This convergence will lead to 26 billion interconnected objects by 2020.
Smarter and smarter products,
meant to make our life easier and safer,
that keep on learning, once in the market,
collect a tremendous wealth of data, feel, react.
How will industries adapt themselves to this new context?
In our company, we make products
to move and meter fluids with great precision and accuracy,
and given this growing complexity,
a few years ago we started asking ourselves just that.
In 2013 we started a completely detached place,
a separated company, a knowledge-based hub
where designers and engineers work together with an eye on the future.
It’s a group of people
who put themselves at the center of a network of excellence
made up of universities, research centers, experts, and tech partners.
They all work with an open mode,
acting and working as architects of innovation,
combining technology, people, knowledge.
This product is a prominent example of this work.
And it’s a valve, a device to deviate a flow,
to be used in the medical field.
The extraordinary thing about it
is that it has been
not only entirely projected but also tested by a computer
through hundreds and hundreds of reiterated simulations,
whose task was to identify and examine
the highest possible number of configurations and geometries
in order to identify the best one according to a target function.
The result was then rendered through a 3D printer,
combined with an actuator made of a shape memory alloy,
a smart material
which acts both as sensor and actuator, so basically as an engine.
All this makes up a connected product, part of those 26 billion objects
which are able to feel, learn, and react according to predefined rules.
These objects are then produced in connected and modern factories
where the staff is hyper-qualified, without gender gaps — no longer.
They project and govern complex machines
that realize the same ultraprecise and minute mechanical details
I remember as a kid – but now, they’re mechatronic.
While all this is happening, however,
while we ride this wave with great dedication and passion,
let me take a step back in time:
it was a Sunday morning in 2015,
I was home with my kids, back then 11, 9 and 6,
talking once again
about dad’s work, the factory, mechanics,
this big transformation.
It already happened,
but that time I felt particularly sorry
not to see in their eyes the same excitement,
and I started to wonder why that was.
This fascinating transformation we are witnessing every day,
this digital convergence,
to our kids, families, but also to the general public
looks distant, unfamiliar.
There is a dramatic gap between reality and perception,
Sure, we in the industry
have never been known for our storytelling abilities.
Traditionally we prefer making products to telling stories.
Before my kids’ dull faces, I realized
we were missing so much
in just sitting down while this gap was increasing.
Industry is where
the greatest advancements of our time are taking place,
and we must be able to share it with our kids.
In a new way, with new words.
A sense of social responsibility rose upon me,
initially towards my own kids,
then towards our youth, our industry, our country,
because I realized there was so much at stake.
An engineer as I am,
I therefore decided to test this feeling of mine against data.
I got the association of manufacturers involved
and we ran an analysis
which showed us clearly that the word “metal-mechanics”,
our field is still labeled with,
is perceived as coupled with words like iron, blue overalls, mass production,
assembly lines, dirt, fatigue, oil.
It felt like an image straight out of Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times”,
a film from the 1930s.
Those companies and the people who bet on the future,
the leaders of this paradigm shift,
are in no way associated with those words,
rather to: technology, precision, electronics, digital, mechanics, future.
Words which are in turn all associated with the term “mechatronics”.
That was a starting point
for a project of sector repositioning,
in order to make it the first best for our kids,
thus promoting a cultural exchange,
and completely rethinking our own narrative.
And so it began with a simple relabeling,
from old fashioned “metal-mechanics” to mechatronics,
Then we created an image,
a new identity which would communicate simply,
and communicate with everyone.
We then went to schools
where we involved young people with the “Company Director” contest
to get them to tell from their perspective, and through cinema,
this brand new world of hi-tech factories;
We got the “Pubblicità Progresso” foundation involved
to go on telling
this new social change in work and factories.
And then we went to the theater, the Strehler Theater in Milan
where we talked about this shift in a piece called
“The Importance of Being Mechatronics”.
There we talked about young people, the future,
but also about art and about beauty,
because the products we make are beautiful
as they are projected in a way
where beauty and quality are deeply intertwined.
We then took this project and are currently taking it
on a national scale,
as it is obviously not just a Milan or Lombardy issue.
But let’s go back to our youth, as it’s been said
that around 65% of kids who enter elementary school today
will work jobs that don’t exist yet,
and if we want that future to be sustainable,
we must get them involved, inspire them, bring them in and welcome them.
But today we set off in Italy from a challenging situation.
65% of STEM skills-based positions
go unfilled;
on the other hand,
we are often reminded of a 35% of youth unemployment.
It’s a paradox, we are talking about two worlds that don’t talk to each other.
But why do our youth and our families
make life choices without any prospects?
Are they aware of it?
Or do they choose and make mistakes deliberately
because they see this new world as distant, difficult, complex,
and so they’d rather take seemingly easier choices?
Robots aren’t stealing our jobs, an inadequate education is:
On one hand, the school model has hardly adjusted to our times,
where multidisciplinarity
and the ability to handle complex situations is critical,
as well as creativity and problem-solving skills —
but we see very little of this in our schools.
Schools should introduce, and let us tinker
with these new technologies that are most relevant now.
I am talking about blockchain, coding, Internet of Things, Big Data,
robotics, smart materials, artificial intelligence —
and I could go on.
All this combined, of course with Art, Literature, and Math.
Schools should be turned into labs of the future,
a diving board towards the future.
Also, education should be felt and lived
more and more as an individual responsibility,
both for young and old people,
because today we have the tools
and we can’t always wait
for someone else to solve all our problems for us.
And us, entrepreneurs, must carry the responsibility of our roles.
We must have the ability
to spread the vision, the stakes, the soul of this work.
We must leave the factories and go right into the school.
I do it whenever I get a chance to,
and believe me, I leave home with the aim of inspiring kids
and get back inspired, because they are open and ready,
so it’s up to us.
We must do this even as parents,
as informed, curious, aware parents.
And hadn’t I convinced you yet,
come and visit our factories.
Come with your kids,
And don’t just come to the factories,
but also to all those places where the future is being shaped.
I’m talking about incubators, business accelerators,
university labs, research centers.
Italy seems to have lost its vision today,
our youth does not take many risks, they seem to have surrendered.
But I don’t buy that.
Italy’s industrial roots are so deep,
we host a fertile ecosystem filled with extraordinary brains,
of passion, tradition of creativity,
and a talent for combinatorial innovation
that is envied worldwide.
Let’s not lose all that
by letting our kids get lost following futureless paths.
As Nelson Mandela once said:
“A winner is just a dreamer who never gives up”.
And if we really want to make our kids succeed again,
we must first go back to inspire them and make them dream.
(Applause)
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