The Centennials Require a Response

A few days ago Samantha Cristoforetti, the ESA astronaut who enjoys rockstar status in Italy, came to visit us. On the 50th anniversary of the Moon landing and at a time when talk of space travel again fills the international scene, listening to @AstroSamantha rekindled the students' (and everyone's) dreams. They filled the auditorium and literally bombarded our guest with questions.

But while the event itself was certainly exciting, the story it tells us is about the taste for challenge, the desire to go further and further, to push your limits and above all your goals forward. Striving for continuous innovation while searching at the same time for a personal and collective purpose is what leads us always towards a sustainable and challenging future.

Watching the Bocconi students involved in the meeting with Cristoforetti or the millions of young people who joined the protest by Greta Thunberg - who was literally alone a few months ago - is like getting a shock and feeling the weight of responsibility that our generation carries vis-à-vis the centennials. That shock must be met with action and commitment.

Bocconi tries to do it daily in the classroom and in planning its future, a tomorrow common to the University, its students and its alumni. In recent months, for example, we have engaged with six other European universities, from Sciences Po to the Stockholm School of Economics, in creating CIVICA - The European University of Social Sciences, part of Erasmus +. The goal "is to train the next generation of professionals at the service of society in all sectors, whose minds are focused on facing the most pressing problems in the world, and who are guided by values of democracy, respect and civil resilience".

Helping new generations to look to the future with confidence is Bocconi's purpose, and the innovations we make are all aimed at achieving this goal.