Valerio Pagliarino, a 17-year-old student from the province of Asti, is the winner of this year’s “Key of Friendship”, the traditional recognition that the Italian Historic Companies Association (an association encompassing 48 more tha one-century-old Made in Italy brands from 8 different regions) bestows every year upon “a prominent figure or an institution’s representative whose work is worthy of merit from a cultural, civil, social and economic point of view, and left a precious legacy and an enlightened sense of progress in Italy”.

 

“Because of the social value of the project, aimed at granting broadband coverage to the victims of the Digital Divide and worthy of the ‘EU Young Scientists” Award”: this is the motivation for the recognition bestowed on Valerio Pagliarino, the young student attending scientific high school “Pellati di Nizza Monferrato” in Castelnuovo Calcea (Asti) who developed the “LaserWan: ultra-broadband laser connection” project and patented a solution to bring faster internet coverage to remote places of the planet. The invention earned him the coveted prize conferred by the European Union.

 

This year’s “Key of Friendship” will be presented to Valerio Pagliarino on December 11^th, 2017 (7.45 pm) at Villa Bardini in Florence; the private ceremony, held on the occasion of IHCA’s Winter Meeting, will be attended by representatives of the 48 associated companies and members of local and national institutions.

 

So far, the “Key of Friendship” was conferred to the superintendent of Florence’s Museums, Antonio Paolucci (2006), to the director of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, Paolo Galluzzi (2007), to Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (2008), and to the president of the Accademia della Crusca, Nicoletta Maraschio (2009). In 2010, on the tenth anniversary of the Association, the Key of Friendship was awarded to constitutional lawyer Enzo Cheli (president of the Gabinetto Vieusseux), architect Francesco Gurrieri (dean of the International University of Art), and entrepreneur Antonella Mansi (president of Confindustria Toscana). In 2011, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary Italy’s Unification, the prize was conferred to the Prefect of Florence, Paolo Padoin; in 2013, to Marco Bartoletti (owner of “BB”, a company from Calenzano); in 2014 to Franco Cervelli, nuclear physicist from Pisa; in 2015 to Balich Worldwide Shows (for World Expo’s “Three of Life”); in 2016, to Kazuyoshi Umemoto, Ambassador of Japan.