A week spent in Toronto really flown away: an experience shared with my four friends that I couldn’t even imagine just one year ago when we seriously started working on i-muse™.
Our demonstration at the ICHIM 07 conference went very well, a lot of people were curious to see our video guide running: from representatives of major Canadian, American and European cultural heritage institutions, to curators, researchers, professors and students. Being able to meet these people, discuss and talk to them, has been the real added value of the event.
The clear impression I had is that we’re among the pioneers in this sector and at the same time we have a product with a quality many doesn’t expect!
A positive experience from a business point of view then, as much as it was for the pleasure of discovering a multi-cultural and rich of points of interest city such as Toronto: we walked through the city’s quarters visiting the major museums, climbed up to the CN Tower’s 447m high Sky Pod and we also admired the power of the Niagara Falls.
A nice presentation and a great cultural enrichment are the balance of our Canadian adventure.
Soon I’ll upload the Torontolati’s Gallery with the best photos of the journey.

In a few days all the five of us will leave for Canada to demonstrate i-muse™ at the ICHIM 07, the international conference about informatics applied to cultural heritage that will take place in Toronto from the 24th to the 26th of October.
For us it’s an incredible chance to show the results of our work to the 300 invited people coming from all over the world, including researchers, sector experts and professionals.
Even the local daily newspaper La Provincia wished us good luck with a great article by Sara della Torre.
It’s a big investment for us, although actually facilitated, since we are among the beneficiaries of the Bando Ingenio, a regional announcement of competition which guarantees us that the expenses sustained for the educational mobility will be refunded.
Meanwhile we got some interest thanks to the paper about i-muse™ we wrote for the conference.
We’ll try to leave a positive impression and to enjoy the adventure.
We’re getting ready with the last things and then let’s go!

It’s the biggest prize we won so far!
The definitive confirmation of the validity of our entrepreneurial project started with i-muse™!
On Monday 8 October, in the wonderful Sala Parlamentino of the Palazzo Affari ai Giureconsulti in Milan, I received the 1st prize of the contest Evaluate your entrepreneurial idea, organized by the Chamber of Commerce of Milan in collaboration with Fondazione FinancIdea and the support of Rasbank and Unicredit Banca: a thick plexiglass plate and a money contribute aimed to help starting the business.
Some of the people I met during the last months attended the award ceremony, something I really appreciated since it means I captured their interest.
An important prize then, maybe more important than we think, since now we’re busy getting ready for the ICHIM in Toronto.
On the Milan’s CCIAA website they’ll publish the official chart of the contest.

After the interview on last February on ZeroTreUno during which me, Luca and Paolo explained what we would have done to make i-muse™, I went back to Espansione TV to tell what we actually did at the Educational Silk Museum.
Elda De Mattei, the presenter, was curious to know if we managed to keep our good promises to create a really innovative tool to visit museums and art events.
With the PDA in my hand, I showed her how much easy is using i-muse™ and I believe I got the attention of the public by showing some of the best pieces of our video guide.
Elda wished us good luck for the incoming travel to Toronto where we’ll present i-muse™ at the ICHIM 07 and I appreciated when she gave me the opportunity to tell about my passion for the Vespa and my wish to be able to see i-muse™ guiding visitors at the Museo Piaggio someday.
Elda called Alice our virtual guide Chiara, a little mistake, certainly lesser than the mention of the atomic bomb during the interview in February!
Here is the video of the 12 minutes interview in DivX format.

After the presentation on Saturday 29 September for the event A Night at the Museum 2007 which attracted important guests like Paolo De Santis, President of the Como’s Chamber of Commerce, and Pierluigi della Vigna, professor at the Politecnico di Milano, together with numerous friends and curious people, yesterday I went to Venice to get an award for our i-muse™ project: a special nomination in the e-culture category of the eContentAward 2007 contest.
The journey has been the opportunity for me to visit for the first time a fascinating town such as Venice.
Dario, a PhD student at Ca’ Foscari university who kindly guided me through the town’s Calle, told me with a bit of irony: “First time in Venice? It shouldn’t have been easy missing it!”.
Once filled the laguna gap, for i-muse™ there are other surprises coming by!