Drawing the future, freehand

Participation in Opening Future's RomeCup 2025, the joint project of Google Cloud, Intesa Sanpaolo and TIM Enterprise, is enlivened by a particularly stimulating reflection: how human creativity can work with artificial intelligence, stimulating out-of-the-box thinking and freeing the creative flow of young people. There are two events: the meeting ‘Re-imagine your future and train your critical thinking!’, scheduled for 8 May (9.30-12.15), with illustrator Fernando Cobelo, and the mini challenge ‘let’s CREATE!’, on 7 May, with illustrator Nicolò Canova. Canova will challenge an artificial intelligence to a battle of creativity at the Opening Future stand. This will mark a new stage of Roll Cloud. Lavorare sulla nuvola (Working on the cloud), a training programme by Fondazione Mondo Digitale ETS and Opening Future that offers secondary schools in Piedmont the opportunity to combine transversal and technical skills through meetings with business experts, orientation sessions and creative challenges. Federico Aguggini, Head of AI Transformation, Data Science & Responsible AI at Intesa Sanpaolo, commented: ‘We are participating in the RomeCup because we believe in the value of training, especially for the younger generations, for the dissemination of digital skills and because this event represents a great opportunity for sharing and exchange between the worlds of education, business and institutions. Intesa Sanpaolo has long been committed to the dissemination of an informed digital culture, with projects such as Opening Future which, in 2024 alone, registered more than 5,000 participants in courses for 700 hours of training and involved over 1,000 SMEs and startups’.
 

In programmes like Roll Cloud, we start by involving young people as full players in the processes of digital innovation. What can companies do for schools in this constant work of updating and supporting young people?
Continuous updating of skills is essential for digital transformation. With projects such as Opening Future, which Intesa Sanpaolo is carrying out in collaboration with Google Cloud and TIM Enterprise, we are concretely demonstrating how the business world can support schools and universities in their growth. We offer students and teachers tools and training courses to understand and guide technological change, reducing the gap between current skills and the needs of the labour market. In this way, young people become true protagonists of innovation.
 

The RomeCup 2025 event involves a visual artist. The very illustrative title is ‘Re-imagine your future and train your critical thinking!’. Why start from hand drawing to talk about creativity and artificial intelligence?
Hand drawing represents an authentic and personal gesture, capable of stimulating creativity. We believe that starting from this gesture can encourage critical thinking, which is fundamental for the conscious use of artificial intelligence. Integrating human input into the use of AI allows us to enhance results, making them innovative, and to develop new forms of expression, promoting a more inclusive and responsible digital future, where the human factor remains at the centre.
 

In the context of the mutual collaboration between Opening Future and Fondazione Mondo Digitale, we have often focused on a critical, conscious and inclusive use of AI, as promoted by the Manifesto during the next RomeCup. Can you tell us about your approach to this important new challenge for humanity?

Opening Future promotes the ethical use of AI, placing humans at the centre of the digital transformation process. This is why we believe that companies should adopt Responsible AI principles, guaranteeing transparency, fairness and human supervision in their processes. Our collaboration with the Fondazione Mondo Digitale at the RomeCup reinforces this vision, because it is an opportunity to train and raise awareness among the younger generations about the conscious and responsible use of AI. Our goal is to generate a positive impact on society and lay the foundations for a future in which technology and human value are always at the centre. The Manifesto for collective action on artificial intelligence and robotics, created during RomeCup 2024 thanks to the work of young people involved in Fondazione Mondo Digitale projects, is addressed to future generations, inviting them to use AI fairly and responsibly, proposing priority actions to be undertaken and developed now, while the technological revolution is underway.
 

Interview by Onelia Onorati, press office of the Fondazione Mondo Digitale