Between February and May (2025) the Bassetti Foundation collaborated with the Lombardy Regional Forum for Innovation to bring discussion about responsibility in innovation to secondary schools within the region of Lombardy.

I partnered Forum member and long-time Foundation collaborator Cristina Grasseni on a tour of five schools, while Foundation staff member Tommaso Correale Santacroce joined me for the remaining engagement. Each event was supported and followed by a representative of the Region. For each school we conducted a two-hour seminar on responsible innovation, proposing an introduction to the topic with examples, followed by a theatrical presentation and critical design workshop.

The interventions were part of a series of training seminars led by the members of the Forum which were delivered across 42 institutions over 9 provinces on behalf of the Region of Lombardy Directorate General for University, Research and Innovation. Seminars topics included climate and technological change, AI, circular economy, space exploration, mathematical modeling and longevity. A broad range of schools were involved, including technical and professional, scientific, linguistic and artistic institutions, a make-up that was reflected in the types of schools I myself visited.

The first part of each seminar was dedicated to a presentation. Grasseni introduced the Forum before describing her work as an anthropologist and its relevance for the forum, followed by an introduction to the topic of Longevity.

Tommaso Correale focused more on the expectancies that the students had for the future, raising the question of which technologies were likely to have the most effect on the students’ lives in the future, reflecting President Bassetti’s question ‘to which technology will power go?’

Both of these presentations led nicely into my theatrical presentation of Longevity: Now Available in Cans! This (fake) near-future drink allows the consumer to take control of their own adrenaline production using drinkable nanotechnology, allowing them to artificially slow their body down at night as they sleep, putting the brakes on the ageing process and allowing them to live longer. The variant Happiness: Now Available in Cans! uses the same technology to control dopamine production.

After the presentation, the students prepared their own future drinks which they then presented to the class (see photos for a few of the many examples).

All of the classes engaged well with the task and presented a wide range of products, ideas, and wishes. Hopes for world peace and reduction in poverty were interspersed with an array of concerns, many of which suggest alarming future scenarios of an unconscious but out of control individualism, often accompanied by solitude, stress, and the sense of being judged during social interaction. These themes emerged across all of the schools, confirming the need to engage with this generation regarding their needs and expectations for the future.

The Region of Lombardy organized and supported the seminars throughout and produced this video (in italian) about our experiences.