In Italy around 3% of children and teenagers are dyslexic. Dyslexia is considered as a Specific Learning Disorder and has been recognised by Italian law (n. 170 of 8 October 2010) which defines the condition, protects the right to study of sufferers and provides guidelines for schools on teaching methods. After years of research, much progress has been made, but after school-age how is inclusion guaranteed in the working world? Are companies prepared to deal with the issue?

In order to create a space to discuss the problem, on Wednesday 17 January, at 4.30 pm, at the Smart Arena in the prestigious Samsung District in Milan, a conference has been arranged with the title “Strategies and technologies for inclusion”, with the patronage of AID (Associazione Italiana Dislessia), FID (Fondazione Italiana Dislessia) and the City of Milan. Donna Moderna, the Mondadori Group women’s weekly, edited by Annalisa Monfreda, is the media partner of the initiative.

The aim is to create an opportunity to promote and spread a culture of inclusion.. Sergio Messina, specialist in child neuropsychiatry and Chairman of the Italian Dyslexia Association (AID) declared: “There is still a great deal of work to do to encourage the educational and social inclusion of dyslexics, but the Association has already done a great deal and, in the last 20 years, achieved important results, including the approval of legislation , the first to recognise and protect the right to study, also through the use of compensatory tools.”

The focus of the conference will be on consolidated experience in education and the workplace in Italy, with a panorama of the international scenario and specific reference to the situation in the English-speaking world.

Examples of virtuous inclusion, in which technology plays a leading role. “The aim of Samsung is to improve the experience and lives of people thought cutting-edge solutions able to inspire the world: our priorities include making all of our technological know-how available to society in order to meet the widest range of needs. We are aware how much technology can be a powerful tool for emancipation and social inclusion, and we have direct experience through many projects that we have developed in recent years, such as our Schools in Hospitals activities,” commented Antonio Bosio, Product & Solutions Director at Samsung Electronics Italy.

But technology alone is not enough. It is “a  tool” to help dyslexics to overcome their difficulties, but the real driver of change is the right information.

This is why  Donna Moderna, a  magazine that has always been sensitive to social issues, covers the dyslexia issue with ad hoc projects (like the longform piece on its website www.donnamoderna.com/news produced in collaboration with Lancôme and AID) and its support for the idea behind the conference. “Dyslexia affects some 2 million people and 350,000 families of school-age children in Italy. The families are often faced with conflicting diagnoses, teachers that often do not have adequate tools to support dyslexic children and the children themselves who suffer also from authentic crises of self-esteem by being misunderstood, not being involved in projects to promote inclusion and not being appreciated,” said  the editor of Donna Moderna, Annalisa Monfreda.

The conference is the result of an idea by Gabriella Schiavone, curator of the “around dyslexia” section of the literary competition “Una Città Che Scrive” (A City that Writes), conceived by Giovanni Nappi. In its 2018 edition, the competition, which was born in Casalnuovo di Napoli, has a special section for specific learning disorders. “The power of writing emerges in all of the stages of our competition. In “Una Città Che Scrive”, writing becomes an opportunity for individual and social  redemption; a form of cultural inclusiveness. With its Special Section for Dyslexia, and separate efforts for our autistic friends and a painting competition reserved only for them, we are attempting to respect the noblest principles of social inclusion, “declared Giovanni Nappi.

Speakers include, Pierfrancesco Majorino, Head of Social Policy, Health and Rights of the City of Milan, IBM Italia and Axia, among the first companies in Italy to have adopted a “Dyslexia Friendly” label. The conference speakers also include the creators and supporters of the EasyReading font that ensures readability for all, including dyslexics. Consequently, all of the material distributed during the conference on Wednesday 17 January will use this highly accessible font.

There will also be contributions from teachers and researchers, as well as direct testimonials from brilliant young students who have entered the world of work.

A limited number of places for a robotics laboratory using augmented communication methods will also be available for children.

Although the event is free, there are a limited number of places. To register please sign up at: https://milano.aiditalia.org

The “Valore D” Manifesto for women at work, which has been signed by the Prime Minister, the Mister for economic Development, INPS (the Italian department of social security) and by the chief executives and chairmen of many leading Italian companies, is a 9-point programme that defines specific measures, in line with international standards for the reporting of sustainability, to enhance female talent in the workplace.

By signing the Manifesto companies commit themselves, among other things, to ensuring that , for example, in the selection process, to have groups of candidates from both sexes (Point 1) and to monitor the number of women at various levels within the company (Point 3), contributing to reducing the pay gap and encouraging the professional growth of women, also at the highest levels (Point 8). Special attention is also given to the management of maternity (Point 4) and support for parents (Points 5, 6 and 7).

On signing up to the Manifesto, our chief executive Ernesto Mauri underlined the fundamental contribution made by women to the Group’s success.

Mondadori’s support for the Manifesto is a further step in the company’s efforts to enhance the presence of women in the company, following its support for the Equal Opportunities Statement presented by Confindustria in 2012, and is in line with the principle set out on our Code of Ethics.

Valore D is the leading business association for the promotion of diversity, talent and female leadership for the growth of the companies and the country. Founded in 2009, it now brings together some 150 Italian companies.

Nostrofiglio, Focus Junior and Focus Pico – the Mondadori Group’s brands aimed at children and young people – are organizing the first edition of “La città dei mestieri. Mettiamo in giorco il talento dei bambini (The city of crafts. Put the talent of children into play “, an event dedicated to families with children from 2 to 13 years of age and their teachers organized in partnership with the educational institution Happy Child.

The event, scheduled for October 7 and 8 at La Triennale di Milano (10-19 hours), is a space for reflection and experience on the talent of children through conferences, meetings with parents, workshops and recreational activities, for a total of more than 40 appointments distributed in three different spaces and dedicated to many topics including science, robotics, coding, journalism for children, drawing and creative work, cooking.

This first edition will guide families to discover the skills of their children through the child’s question-dream “what will I be?” and the many experiences that can be lived in the “city of arts and crafts”.

The detailed programme of “La città dei mestieri. Mettiamo in gioco il talento dei bambini” is available here.

Donna Moderna, the Mondadori Group magazine edited by Annalisa Monfreda, – which has a long track record of engagement with social issues– is launching its ‘Dyslexia Project’ (‘Progetto Dislessia’).

The project begins with a talk show on  Wednesday 4 October at the Mondadori Megastore in Piazza Duomo in Milan that will inform the public and clarify some of the false ideas and prejudices that surround this issue. The talk show – that will be available live on the Donna Moderna Facebook page – will feature the magazine’s editor, together with the actor Francesco Riva, the radio and TV presenter Andrea Delogu, journalist and mother Francesca Magni, primary school teacher Antonella Meiani, the neuro-psychiatrist Cristiano Termine and Ulrika Wiskstrom, Brand General Manager of Lancôme, sponsor of the initiative.

“The diagnosis of dyslexia is becoming more common and our readers, mothers of dyslexic children, have to face the incapacity of schools and society to manage this feature of the human brain, which leads to children learning differently,” said the editor of the magazine. “The aim of Donna Moderna is to make it clear that dyslexia, and other specific learning disabilities, are simply another way of being intelligent. Early diagnosis, through signals that some children show from the age of two, can make it easier to bring them up to be confident and serene,” Annalisa Monfreda concluded.

The Talk Show will take place during Dyslexia Week, promoted by AID (the Italian Dyslexia Association www.aiditalia.org), and will begin an awareness building project, organised in collaboration with Lancôme, that, with its initiative “Write Her Future”, supports the mission of AID to help children to overcome difficulties at school.

Donna Moderna will also develop the initiative with a longform essay on the web, which will be online on Wednesday, 4 October (www.donnamoderna.com/dislessia) that will also be published in the magazine in the form of a special dossier. This specially produced feature – with photos by Gabriele Galimberti – tells the stories of both famous and unknown characters who have “come out” as dyslexics and invites readers and users (aged 12 to 74) to do likewise by sending a video of their experience to the editorial team.The longform essay is divided into three sections related to three realities that revolve around the world of dyslexia: the science (in which doctors and experts explain what dyslexia is), the family (in the word of dyslexics, as well as the experience of parents, family members and friends) and school (also involving teachers who explain how they relate to and handle classes).

The Lancôme project is part of a larger programme that every year encourages and promotes the happiness of all women. Every woman can acquire independence and freedom and be the author of her own story, but only if she has, from childhood, the right tools to help her develop. In October, for Lancôme the Month of Happiness, the company will contribute, with a donation to AID, to the organisation of important training sessions for teachers and parents, with the aim of raising awareness and facilitating the recognition of dyslexia.

Donna Moderna, part of the Mediamond advertising portfolio, is Italy’s leading editorial network for women, an ecosystem that through its magazine,  web and social channels, embraces a total audience of 10 million net contacts, between readers and users (Source: Company data based on Audipress 2017.1 and Audiweb May2017), that is able to extend and develop its reach with initiatives like this around the country (4 million monthly readers, a circulation of 230,000 copies.  7.9 million unique users -Audipress 2017.1,ADS Jan-Dec 2016;  Audiweb View May 2017 – and 516,000 followers on Twitter and 627,000 fans on Facebook).

Donna Moderna, the Mondadori Group magazine edited by Annalisa Monfreda, will be the media partner of the Women’s Fiction Festival, to be held in Matera from 28 to 30 September. Now in its 13th edition, the programme of the WFF feature encounters with authors, laboratories in schools, readings, shows and various other activities for the promotion of books and reading.

In this context Donna Moderna will organise a series of encounters in which the weekly magazine’s  editor and journalists will talk with writers, editors and agents, in other words, protagonists from the world of literature and journalism.

“Donna Moderna has always been attentive to its readers and their tastes in books. We know that they love reading and sharing their passions and exchanging ideas and suggestions about novels. This is why we wanted to be involved as the of the Women’s Fiction Festival. And we will also be present to meet with authors and readers and present our competition La tua vita in un libro (Your life in a book) to which many aspiring writers have already responded,” said the editor of Donna Moderna, Annalisa Monfreda.

In fact, Donna Moderna has given its readers the opportunity to become writers and see their work published by the Mondadori publishing house in an initiative aimed at women who want to write about their personal experience.

The second phase of the competition – details of which will be announced during the WFF – will see the 10 selected candidates put to the test on the web site www.donnamoderna.com/news/cultura-e-spettacolo/concorso/la-tua-vita-in-un-libro: where they will have – in a collaboration between the editorial staff of Donna Moderna and Mondadori Libri – a special section where they can publish drafts and interact with the public, reply top questions and provide greater detail about their stories. The jury will decide on a winner by December 2017, taking account of the pertinence to the theme proposed, the creativity and originality of the work, as well as the work done during the talent on line phase.
Programme of events organised and moderated by Donna Moderna at the Women’s Fiction Festival:

Thursday 28 September (at 7 pm Area 8) Annalisa Monfreda introduces Teresa Ciabatti, author of ”La più amata”, published by Mondadori, and talk about the this latest success by the author that talks about her family and the events of an entire era, An honest “autofiction” born of the need to come to terms with a brusquely interrupted happy childhood.

It will also be possible to follow this event live on the magazine’s Facebook page.

This will be followed at 7.45 pm by La tua vita in un libro (Your life in a book). Advice for writers: a round table discussion with Annalisa Monfreda, Isabella Fava, journalist of Donna Moderna and Edoardo Brugnatelli, fiction editor at Mondadori.

Friday 29 September (at 6 pm at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Domenico Ridola). Isabella Fava presents Anna Giurovick Dato, author of “La figlia femmina”, published by Fazi and Antonella Lattanzi, author of “Una storia nera”, published by Mondadori.

Saturday 30 September (ore 12.00 at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Domenico Ridola) Annalisa Monfreda talks with Lorenzo Marone, author of “Magari domani resto”, published by Feltrinelli and Federico Baccomo, author of “Anna sta mentendo”, published by Giunti.

In conclusion, on Saturday (at 7 pm at the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Domenico Ridola) Isabella Fava will talk about “L’arrivo di Saturno”, published by Bompiani, with the author Loredana Lipperini.

Donna Moderna, Italy’s leading editorial network for women, is an authentic ecosystem that with its magazine,  web and social channels, embraces an overall audience of 10 million net contacts among readers and users (source: Audipress 2017 and Audiweb May2017), that is also able to expand further thanks to initiatives of this kind around the country (4 million readers per month, a circulation of 230,000,  7.9 million unique users – Audiweb View May 2017 – and 515,000 followers on Twitter and 617,000 fans on Facebook).

The fourth edition of Panorama d’Italia, the live & media experience of Panorama, kicks off on 5 April to talk about Italy directly from its streets with initiatives and events open to everyone. After the record-breaking 2016 edition, the Mondadori Group newsmagazine, edited by Giorgio Mule, returns to celebrate the protagonists of the best of Italy in the business world, the economy, culture, science and food and wine, in 10 new stages taking in 13 Italian cities between April and November, with a successful award-winning format and many new features.

An authentic consecration of a now tried and tested formula of talk shows, debates with the protagonists of national politics, conferences, shows: in three years some 13 million people were reached by the tour and the public who intervened directly at the various appointments in the 30 cities amounted to some 320,000 thousand, with 1,123 guests and speakers (including 17 ministers, 15 Regional Presidents and 26 mayors), 1,210 media mobilised for 636 events, all open to the public, 511 entrepreneurs involved round table discussions with the participation of over 1,800 companies (including 500 innovative start-ups) and, finally, 37 universities and a total of 121 sponsors.

“Like all creatures, in this case editorial, also Panorama d’Italia has its own development path,” said the editor of Panorama Giorgio Mule. “After making the week dedicated to Milan permanent, this year, in addition to the 10 Italian stages, we decided to take a leap: to America. So, it is with considerable pride that we are launching This is Italy – Parts Unknown, a twin of the Panorama d’Italia that will be in New York in the autumn. We did this following in the path laid out by the President of the Italy, Sergio Mattarella. In fact, in October 2016, the President encouraged Panorama d’Italia to “enhance the excellence in which Italy is rich, and to expand knowledge and confidence in the future.” And  that is what we will do in this, even richer, edition of Panorama d’Italia and that’s what we’ll do in New York with This is Italy – Parts Unknown,” Mulè concluded.

The stages of the tour and the American “expedition”

In 10 stages from April to November, Panorama will cross Italy from north to south, involving local excellence and prestigious guests, moderated by the magazines leading journalists and others. For four days each city will host a full calendar of events in the most representative places in close contact with the protagonists.

We get started in Turin (from 5-8 April) and then make a stop in Bologna (19-22 April), Pavia (17-20 May), Spoleto, Norcia and Montefalco (7-10 June), Bari (28 June-1July), Trieste and Udine (6-9 September), Olbia (27-30 September), a special stop in Milan (15-21 October) and, finally, Caserta (8-11 November) and Dubrovnik (22-25 November).

This year these dates will be supplemented by This is Italy – Parts Unknown, a special stage in New York, from 31 October to 2 November: three days of events with a programme entirely dedicated to the discovery and celebration of our country through food and wine, business, fashion, design, art and culture. A showcase of excellence, thanks to the collaboration of Italian Business and Investment Initiatives and the support of the prestigious US Council on Foreign Relations, that includes four workshops dedicated to companies that have been able to put down roots in the United States, the excellence of Italian food and manufacturing, the best practices of Italian institutions and the capacity of cities to modernise. During a gala dinner at the Harvard Club, Italian & American Leadership awards will be presented. Among the Italians to be awarded will be the tenor Vittorio Grigolo, the football player Andrea Pirlo and the chef Vito Mollica.

What’s new in 2017

There will be a number of new features in the 2017 edition, which confirms the most popular of appointments recent years and will expand the range of initiatives with new partners and new projects.

A city in the mirror: Inthera, a company of the Mondadori Group, will conduct research dedicated to the territory of each stage to find out people’s views on work, their faith in and expectations for the future, their sense of belonging, social values, and their level of satisfaction with available services. The research will also examine issues related to consumption and buying propensity.

Focus meetings: after the extraordinary reception of last year, Focus will double its presence in the Panorama d’Italia programme, with four the events organised in every stage by Italy’s most widely read magazine, with 5 million readers, and edited by Jacopo Loredan. The novelty of 2017 is “Health on a plate. Discovering the truth and misconceptions about food”, a new format dedicated to nutrition and health, that will take the form of a Q & A with researchers and industry experts. Also making its debut this year is “Discover the past, understand the present”, which with Focus Storia will look at current events through episodes and events which have their origin in the local history of our country.

Also confirmed is the appointment with astronomy, which last year saw the astronaut Umberto Guidoni “Walking in space” with scientists and astronauts from the Italian Space Agency (ASI-Agenzia Spaziale Italiana) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Another repeat feature is the meeting dedicated to the environment with “Pollution and climate change: a changing earth”, in collaboration with the Department of Earth Sciences and Environmental Technology of the CNR, the Italian Air Force and Greenpeace Italy. During the event secondary school students will be the protagonists of a training workshop organised by Focus journalists.

Startups and innovation: the title is “Eureka: an idea becomes a business”, and it is a Panorama d’Italia competition that rewards business ideas and the most innovative projects aimed at the collective well-being of local communities. A panel of industry experts will award the idea and the most innovative start-up with a week of intensive training in New York as part of the “One Week Accelerator Program NY organised by the Italian Business & Investment Initiative.” An extraordinary showcase for business opportunities across the Atlantic for makers and startuppers from the nine regions involved in the tour and operating in the sectors of mobility; green economy; environmental health; youth and schools/work; tourism; wellness and lifestyle; integration and multicultural initiatives; an cyber ​security.

Projects for schools: students from the schools in the territories involved in the tour will have an increasingly active role in the 2017 edition of Panorama d’Italia. The new feature this year is called “Treasures of Italy: the city speaks”, a contest with which Panorama will rewards a high school with an entire computer room provided by Lenovo. To participate, students will create a photographic and/or journalistic reportage, a promotional video, an artistic artefact, a painting, a poem or a short story on the theme of beauty linked to the territory visited by Panorama d’Italia. In addition, Panorama has donated more than 7,000 books to colleges in previous years thanks to the “100 books for a school” initiative, enriching the libraries of the schools that have won the competition, which returns this year. This also includes “The beauty of Milan”, the initiative that in 2016 gave Milanese high schools the opportunity to make a special edition of the school newspaper, and then awarded 10 students with an internship at Mondadori, part of a combined school and work programme. This year, as well as books for the school library, participants can also win computers and other technological tools for their school.

Naturally, there is the Milan stage of the tour, which, after the extraordinary success of 2016 – with 22,000 participants and 54 events over 7 days – this year will be held from 15 to 21 October. Among the guests will be Benji & Fede, the pop duo favourite of the very young, and stars of a unique event in favour of the charity Lega del Filo d’Oro.

Cooking classes: in addition to the usual space given to culinary excellence with show cooking events featuring best chefs and meetings with personalities from the world of food, this year the taste experience is enriched with cooking classes in collaboration with Eataly: group lessons experts and focused on recipes, to be tried out in the company of friends and family, and special moments even for children.

On the occasion of the triple stage in Umbria, there will be a big concert in Spoleto to celebrate the territory in a special evening of music and solidarity and with the special participation of Serena Autieri. The popular musicians Giovanni Allevi and Niccolò Agliardi have already signed up for the show.

Meanwhile, a Panorama d’Italia info point will be a fixed feature in 10 cities throughout the duration of this stage, and in other areas there will be an alternating series of institutional and entertainment events. As always, the protagonists are artists, musicians, writers and celebrities, with exclusive interviews, presentations, showcases and previews.

An appointment reserved for the cinema, and curated by Piera Detassis, editor of Ciak and president of the Fondazione Cinema per Roma, will be especially dedicated to actors and directors.

Among the inevitable appointments with art, we will once again feature Vittorio Sgarbi, an exceptional guide to the artistic heritage of the area. Meanwhile, The Secret City, guided tours of palaces and other places of art generally closed to the public, will bring to light the hidden treasures of each city. An opportunity to rediscover the beauty of the area is also the purpose of the bike tour organised by EICMA, which with a special appearance by Roberto Giacobbo who will guide participants around a series of monuments and architectural treasures. Among the recurring guests there will also be the editor of Chi Alfonso Signorini who will conduct exclusive special talk shows with the most popular show business personalities of the moment.

Panorama will also renew its commitment to training and work: once again this year Panorama d’Italia will provide opportunities for young high school graduates, university undergraduates and graduates to participate in panel discussions and individual orientation sessions, in collaboration with the HRCommunity Academy Italia, with the HR managers of leading companies in the area.

Also our charity partnership with the Lega del Filo d’Oro will remain central with a contribution to the construction of the new Osimo Centre, an entirely new home for the deaf and blind and multi-disabled. Fundraising efforts are brought to life thanks to our collaboration with Cruciani, which has created a new limited edition bracelet especially for the occasion, to be sold exclusively at the events of the stages of the tour and on the Lega del Filo d’Oro web site. All proceeds from the sale of the bracelet will go to the charity association.

Panorama d’Italia online

The main events will be visible live on Panoramaditalia.it, on the Panorama.tv channel and on Facebook. Over the past few years we have broadcast more than 540 hours of live streaming of events, as well as live updates, photos and videos from the stages in progress. The site dedicated to the tour will this year provide an area for recording the events, which will offer a free three-month subscription to the digital edition of Panorama.

You can share all your impressions and experiences from the events of Panorama d’Italia on all of the leading social networks using the hashtag #panoramaditalia. The Twitter account @panoramaditalia will comment in real time on all the most important moments involving the protagonists of the events. Users of the social community are currently are 350,000, with 5,665,000 total views on Facebook alone.

Partners

Panorama d’Italia  is fortunate to be able to count on the support of high-level partners, who share the same commitment to the promotion of Italian excellence around the country and the world. They include: Ab medica, Autostrade per l’Italia, Cobat, Eataly, EICMA, Enel, Grimaldi Lines, IBM, Intesa San Paolo, Lenovo, Lottomatica, Università Telematica Pegaso, Poste Italiane, Sicily by Car, Teva. The charity partnership with the Lega del Filo d’Oro will accompany all tour dates. In addition, stage by stage, there will also be active media partnerships with leading local newspapers, and TV and radio stations.

Panorama d’Italia  is produced in collaboration with Triumph Group International for executive production and logistics; the registration platform is managed by The Rocks, while the digital strategy is developed and run by FPS Media.

During the meeting between Pope Francis and Scholas Occurrentes, held today in the Synod Hall in Rome, a new Mondadori publishing project was presented developed in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes and the start up eFanswer: Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande, a book that will be published later in the year, both in Italy and abroad.

Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande is not just a book but an international “social event”, in which Pope Francis invites young people from around the world to ask him questions on the site www.askpopefrancis.scholasoccurrentes.org, developed together with the start-up eFanswer and available in five languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. You can ask anything, there are no predefined arguments or issues, the important thing is that what you want to know comes from the heart. The questions will be collected and selected by Mondadori and Scholas Occurrentes on the basis of two main criteria: variety and originality, in order to allow Pope Francis to share his thoughts on topics never so far addressed. The Holy Father’s answers will be published in a book to be released in the coming months and for which the rights will be sold worldwide. Edited by Tiziana Lupi, a journalist, who wrote Our Pope, an illustrated biography of Pope Francis published by Mondadori in 2014, and edited My Idea of ​​Art, a book published last year, also by Mondadori, in which, for the first time, Pope Francis expressed his thoughts on art.

Chiedete. Le mie risposte alle vostre domande is an authentic social book, which uses new forms of communication to put the Holy Father in contact with people from every corner of the planet. A sort of collective book interview, a new concept, a great virtual dialogue between Pope Francis and young people from around the world, of any social class and religion who, thanks to the internet, can ask their questions just as if they had him in front of them.

During the meeting Pope Francis underlined how important it is to learn to enter into a dialogue, because in a dialogue everybody wins and nobody loses; because dialogue means building bridges. Tiziana Lupi, who presented the project, focused on just this concept to describe it: “With this book, together with Scholas Occurrentes and Mondadori, we have tried to open a door to this dialogue. Unfiltered, so that young people can ask their questions directly on the web platform. The aim is to be open to listening and dialogue, two key tools, as Pope Francis himself claims, for the creation of a different world.” The first two questions were asked by two of the 12 YouTubers present at the meeting. The answers, which the Holy Father gave immediately, will be the first to be included in the book.

This project has been developed in collaboration with Scholas Occurrentes, an international organisation of pontifical law created by Pope Francis and concerned with young people and education with the aim of promoting social integration and a culture of encounters for peace, and thanks to a technological and publishing platform developed by the start-up eFanswer.

Following the success of previous editions, also this year, the magazine Focus Junior and the Polytechnic University of Milan have joined together for the “Tutti insieme all’università” (“All Together at University”) project which is aimed at children between the ages of 7 and 13: five appointments offering an opportunity to participate, some years in advance, in real university lectures of big scientific topics with some of the best teachers of the Polytechnic University of Milan.

The lessons, that will take place in the months of February and March, have been designed to respond to kids’ curiosity using innovative, amusing and stimulating content that will help them to discover the world in a new and intelligent way that is entirely consistent with the educate-by-entertaining approach that guides all the activities of the Focus Junior brand.

The initiative starts on 27 February with two appointments, at 10.30 and at 12.00: practical experiments in physics will lead the kids through the science fiction and reality of the films of the Star Wars saga, and a look at some of the most recent technological inventions.

The lessons will continue on 5 March, with the excitement of robots, on 2 April with the discovery of the engines of the future, on 9 April with the design techniques for paper jewellery that respects the environment, and concluding with a final lesson on 14 May on how videogames work by deconstructing three of the most popular titles.

While the kids are “studying”, their parents will be given a guided tour of the Polytechnic University of Milan campus.

Participation is free, with a maximum of 400 places for each lesson.

All you have to do is sign up on the Polytechnic University of Milan web site, in the section devoted to events: www.eventi.polimi.it.

Mondadori Store, Italy’s most extensive network of bookshops, with over 600 outlets, and the e-commerce site Mondadoristore.it, has chosen PAYBACK for its new loyalty programme, offering its customers increasingly greater opportunities to collect points and gain faster access to discounts and prizes.

In fact, with a single card, it is now possible to collect points at all Mondadori Stores in Italy and on Mondadoristore.it, as well as when making purchases at any of the other partners of the programme.

Thanks to this partnership, from today, Mondadori’s PAYBACK card holders can collect 2 PAYBACK points for every euro spent for the purchase of books and 1 PAYBACK point for every euro spent for the purchase of the music, video, technology, toys and stationery products through the Mondadori channel. Plus, until 31 March 2016, all PAYBACK customers will collect triple points on their first purchase.

The entry of Mondadori Store into a coalition that includes leading brands in the main retail and service sectors, will expand the PAYBACK offer making it even more complete. A continuation of the growth of PAYBACK which now has 9 million customers who use the card to collect points when they shop at Esso, Carrefour, with a subscription to Mediaset Premium, for subscriptions and recharges from 3 Italia, but also thanks to flights on Alitalia, and the financial partners American Express, BNL and Carrefour Banca and the more than 60 online partners that have signed up for the programme.

For more information, please go to www.mondadoristore.it e www.payback.it.

Cracking Art, a group of artists known for over twenty years for their installation around the world of giant, colourful animals made from plastic that can be regenerated, in September chose Palazzo Niemeyer, the headquarters of the Mondadori Group, as the setting for a spectacular collective installation of their works.
During the event, donations were collected for the promotion of the cultural activities of the Centro Nazionale Studi Manzoniani: all those who participated were given a small frog- sculpture by Cracking Art.

Thanks to the contribution of the Mondadori Group,the amount raised was allocated to the establishment of a bursary for the new cataloguing of the library of Alessandro Manzoni conserved in the museum in the writer’s house, which opened on 6 October.
The details of the bursary are available on the www.casadelmanzoni.it website.
The bursary can be used from 10 March to 30 September. The successful candidate will be responsible for the scientific inspection of the files in the catalogue of the Alessandro Manzoni library conserved at the Centro Nazionale Studi Manzoniani, comprising 1600 volumes (“Annali Manzoniani”, vol. VI, pp. 65-159).

Cracking Art
All the creations of Cracking Art are characterised by an innovative use of plastic materials: regenerating plastic means removing it from toxic and environmentally devastating destruction; making works of art from it to be placed in urban, monumental and historical locations means communicating through an innovative aesthetic language, to express a special sensitivity towards nature and man. This operation is part of the Cracking Art “Art regenerates Art” project aimed at raising funds for restoration programmes of the artistic and monumental heritage or cultural projects.

Photo credits: Marco Covi/ Mondadori Portfolio