Who could have ever said that I would had to install a remote station of the Net-tailor system no less than in Moscow?
And yet we did it, everything went ok fortunately. On last Saturday, together with Cleto Orefice, I flew to the Russian capital and in the following two days I installed and configured the IP camera that will allow Cleto to remotely take measurements and do the suits fitting for Styleguide.ru’s customers, a company taking care of the image and style of important people.
There were a lot of uncertainties before leaving, both from the technical and human point of view, mixed together with the appeal and mystery of a big city such as Moscow.
It wasn’t easy, but everything went well also thanks to Styleguide.ru staff, in particular their young manager and founder Ivan and his brilliant assistants Nadia and Viktoria.
Thanks to them we had the opportunity to appreciate some of the Moscow wonders, as you can see in the gallery of 69 photos I shot.
Really a great experience!
I’m very happy for Cleto, since his investment to make the Net-tailor system is beginning to generate profits.
Who knows where we’ll go to install the next station…

It’s dream becoming reality: a new technological company is born, gathering five friends and professionals and offering i-muse™ as its first product!
In this entrepreneurial adventure I involved Guido, Luca, Paolo and Samantha together with me.
Five young guys from Como with complementary skills who try because they believe they can succeed.
What does Togunà mean?
Suggested by Guido, who also gave birth to the name i-muse™ , it’s an African word indicating the “house of wisdom“, a sort of covered place such as the one in the picture where the village’s wise men get together to have a talk.
A simple name, easy to explain and with a proper meaning if we recall the weekly evening meetings we regularly have since we started working on i-muse™.
The company is just a starting point, although with a solid basis, since we built a lot until now thanks to the work we did creating a product such as i-muse™.
Now we’re on the market, ready to take care of our first customer, and I, as President of our Board of Directors, feel at the same time the burden and the honor to give my best in order to continue in this adventure together with my partners!
Finger crossed and thanks to our supporters!

The guys who launched the portal Comoe20.it decided to interview us for their WebTV.
They came to the Educational Silk Museum of Como to see our videoguide at work and ask us if we made the system with our sole forces or someone did help us out.
Although the number of people involved in the project who supported us is relevant, from the Politecnico to the Chamber of Commerce of Como, to the Educational Silk Museum’s staff, the investment in terms of time and money has been almost entirely ours.
It’s something pretty surprising actually. Five youngers from Como who try to play as entrepreneurs starting with a product dedicated to a difficult market, especially in Italy: we’re actually inventing our work!
This is the message of the nice video edited by Comoe20.it’s staff and we hope the people will get it.
Enjoy the video!

When I was in Toronto five weeks ago I didn’t miss the opportunity to go and see the Niagara Falls. This recalled me the impressive sight of the Marmore Falls I stared at last year during my Vespatour 2006.
On August 19th, after the visit to Assisi, my solo journey continued towards Rome, while discovering some of the Umbria’s beauties along the way. I visited Norcia, the town of San Benedetto, a place widely known for its sausages and ham made from wild boar and pork, and I spent the night in Melezzole di Montecchio, in the bed&breakfast section of the regal Palazzo degli Anselmi, where I met Paolo and Samantha, the friends who later produced the contents for i-muse™.
Actually I had the privilege to be the first guest of the bed&breakfast owned by Samantha’s parents.
Rested and restored, the following day I continued the journey on my Vespa and I spent the morning by breathing the fresh air surrounding the Marmore Falls area, the natural wonder I already wrote about on the blog.
Here you have the 51 photos of the fourteenth gallery of my Vespatour 2006.
As with each gallery the pictures are geolocalized, which means you just have to click on the map this! button in order to see their position on Google Maps.

Did you ever stop to carefully read the tag of a food package you purchased at the supermarket?
I rarely did it before reading Paolo Conti’s book.
It’s the synthesis of a three years long inquiry containing a lot of information exposed in a clear and fluent way.
The book deals with arguments ranging from the supermarkets power over the food chain, to the analysis of the health emergencies caused by food adulteration, to the opposition between techno-food and eco-food.
All of this always taking into consideration the position of Italy compared to other countries: we have a good competitive advantage in the biologic food sector.
It’s an advantage mostly due to the slow industrialization process of the food production sector in our country, something which we can exploit now that the consumer attention towards good and genuine food is definitely increasing.
So there’s still hope in order to preserve the good Italian food reputation in the next years, so that it won’t become a legend due to invasive production and conservation techniques, supermarkets economic interests and last but not least our buying decisions.

Lucca is a town of magic: I already wrote this when I visited it last year for the first time during my Vespatour 2006.
This year I had the chance to get back to Lucca thanks to Lu.Be.C 2007, the event dedicated to the combination of ICT and cultural heritage organized by Promo P.A. Foundation at the Real Collegio.
A combination which isn’t exactly a marriage in Italy yet: I had the feeling that Public Administration representatives managing our cultural heritage and entrepreneurs offering their so called additional services, too often speak different languages.
It’s a natural defect of computer science engineers making things only they can use and in my opinion this is the strongest barrier in the dialogue between the two sides.
We try to do our part with i-muse™: technology, PDAs and Rfid in our case, it’s just a tool.
What really counts is that the service we provide boasts quality and the visitor actually benefits from it.
Along this line I appreciated the brilliant speeches of Andrea Granelli, advisor of the Minister of Cultural Heritage, and Ilaria D’Uva from D’Uva Workshop.
Who knows if next year at Lu.Be.C we’ll be able to report some progress towards this marriage thanks to i-muse™.

Rfid Italia, the Italian portal about Rfid technology published a video interview on i-muse™.
Paolo Conti, Rfid Italia’s director, came to see us in Como and had the opportunity to try our video guide at the Educational Silk Museum.
He spent words of appreciation for our system, in particular since we implemented the Rfid technology in a transparent way for the visitor.
Actually a small antenna mounted on the Pda is used to locate the Rfid tags placed on the caption holders and the visitor just have to bring the Pda close to the icons hiding the tags in order to play the content related to the exhibit he’s looking at.
A pretty simple interaction method which proved to be critical for the people who doesn’t feel at ease with technology in general, especially the so called couch potatoes.
The Rfid Italia portal is pretty active lately. For example they recently launched the Rfid Italia Network initiative, aimed to provide consulting, matching and marketing services to the companies operating in the sector.
Enjoy the video!

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.