blog expo milano

Do you already know that Milan Expo 2015 has its own social network? That’s expoholic.it, a vertical social network created to get in contact people interested in the 2015 Universal Exposition which will take place in Milan. Expoholic is a funny wordplay and it gets together Milan Expo 2015 addicted. In 2007, Sonia Anania created a blog and, some years later, she decided to transform into a real social network, in order to allow members to actively contribute. If you are a member of expoholic.it, you can share texts, upload pictures or videos, create groups and control them, interact with other members, report events and comments. The expoholic.it community welcomes and gives voices to authorities and common people, to associations, companies and students who want to be active players in Milan Expo 2015. This social network helped in creating the best place to share and develop ideas and thoughts about the next Universal Exposition.

The “Disability and Over” project is going to start, promoted by Fondazione Notari and the Province of Milan. Expressly created for Expo 2015, this project aims at training 50 International Tourist Assistants with disabilities. The project involves a great challenge and that’s immediately clear from its name: don’t pay attention to the wheelchair but focus on the person’s skill and knowledge. «We want to train high-level, multilingual assistants, capable of welcoming tourists coming in Milan from all over the world during the Expo 2015» explained Aldo Arrigoni, the Director of “Disability and Over”. The training period consists in classes for seven hours per day, five days a week and it’s based on intensive courses in English, informatics, art history, toponomastics, congress tourism and marketing. At the end of this first period, the 50 assistants will be able to welcome tourists during Expo 2015 and on the occasion of other events before that date. Tourists deserve the most favorable welcome and if it’s a disabled person who organizes displacements and evaluates the access to public areas, then everyone will move very easily. The Province of Milan is going to support the initiative within the next few years, followed by Regione Lombardia and the City of Milan.

Within a couple of years, it will be possible to cycle from the Piazza Duomo to the Expo 2015 Area. The project has been launched by the Province of Milan and it consists in a green way studded with architectural and engineering works. This will be the first plan for the Expo 2015, created by the Politecnico di Milano, the Centro Studi Pim and the Accademia di Brera. According to the project feasibility study, a new cycle lane will connect the Duomo and Molino Dorino to the Expo 2015 Area and three functional bridges will be created over the railway, the Olona River and the Simplon Route. But, as the President of the Province of Milan, Guido Podestà, stated, we’re talking about something rather more than a simple cycle lane. The innovative Milano-Expo green way will focus on art. The 8-km line will cut across rural and urban areas and it will be integrated with subway and railway stations. The lighting system will be a LED-only one and the project named “ Floating Bikes” will furnish enough light at night. The province Councillor for infrastructures, Giovanni De Nicola, explained that the Milano-Expo green way accomplishes two goals. On the one hand, it will be useful for Expo 2015 visitors to explore the city during the exhibition and, on the other, it will increase the use of an eco-friendly means of transport.

Bit 2011, Milan Tourism Fair, ended its 31st edition on Sunday 20 February. The story of the largest tourism exhibition in the world goes on, with a focus on the future and on the entire world. Starting from last year edition, Milan World Expo 2015 had its own stand at the fair, as the other 130 nations exhibiting there. This represents a great opportunity to introduce Expo 2015 program to tour operators, restaurateurs, touristic boards, considered fundamental players in the Italian flourishing tourism sector. Expo 2015 had a chance to get in touch with people that, within 4 years, will personally experience the World Exhibition in Milan, stopping over in the city during their trips. Milan is at the top of most tourist’s must-visit lists, as a reference point for fashion and design. That’s what the Mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, said during the Bit opening conference : “The city has become first European destination for business tourism and third for cultural tourism, with results that will grow as Expo approaches, estimated at 69 billion (Euros) and 61 thousand jobs”.

At the end of Shanghai World Expo 2010, the majority of structures built for the exhibition were dismantled and sent back to their origin countries. This did not happen for the Italian Pavilion: authorities in China’s commercial hub Shanghai plan to keep five foreign pavilions from Expo 2010 as public landmarks.
During the six-month May-October exhibition period, the Italian Pavilion, designed by Giampaolo Imbrighi, welcomed over 7 million visitors and turned out to be the most busiest pavilion. Moreover, it won the Expo Cup, an online competition to vote the Shanghai Expo 2010 most popular pavilion.
From now on, Shanghai will show off the Italian Pavilion. It will be an important showcase for Italy. “ To effectively take advantages of great possibility – Mr. Quintieri, Commissioner General of Shanghai Expo 2010, said– we require total commitment. Italian firms, associations and public authorities have to plan activities to liven up the Italian Pavilion”.
Do you think the same thing will happen at the end of Expo Milano 2015? Let’s hope so.

On February 5, the city of Milan held the first public presentation of Expo 2015, when the Italian oncologist Umberto Veronesi introduced his new proposal, the “Chart of Milan”, a manifesto to fix the Expo 2015 goals.
“My idea is to create a standing committee for the six-month Expo 2015, aimed at drawing up a formal document, the so called “ Chart of Milan”, to fight against hunger in the world” Dr. Veronesi said.
All the participants welcomed Veronesi’s proposal and the mayor of Milan, Letizia Moratti, commented: “the ‘Chart of Milan’ can be a reference point that we have to set in the next few years, in order to show it to the world during Expo 2015.
There’s plenty of time to get together a panel of international leading experts on the theme of Expo “Feeding the planet, Energy for Life”. Umberto Veronesi is going to be the first on health front, while the fashion stylist Giorgio Armani is already one of the creative partners, as chief judge of the contest to create a new logo and, soon, the Mtv Manager Antonio Campo Dall’Orto could be enrolled as music events consultant.

On January 31, the first step of the contest to create a new Expo 2015 logo came to an end.
The students and post graduates from various Art and Design Schools, Architecture, Fashion, Industrial design and Graphic Publicity sectors had been called upon to create the new Expo 2015 logo. The participants were expected to base their ideas and inspirations on the themes “Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life”, cleverly mixing taste, innovation, knowledge and relationships.
As the Managing Director of Expo 2015 S.p.A. Giuseppe Sala explained: “The new logo must be designed by young capable of communicating a clear message to everyone on the important subject of nutrition and the rights of everyone to enjoy a safe and healthy diet and sufficient resources for all the world’s peoples.”.
The new logo will replace the temporary one that involves a riff on Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man and a globe and that has been used since the winning of the bid two years ago.
In the next steps of the contest, a specialized jury will select the best two proposals and then it’s up to the people to select the most creative and captivating logo.

The international Expo will bring cultural events in the city: for all the year 2015, in Milan, there will be a variety of important expositions and initiatives that will be the setting of the Expo.
A big exposition of Leonardo and Michelangelo, the birth of the Grande Brera pole and cultural events that see young people as protagonist. Inside there will be the  Expo pavilions, while outside the urban area there will be a parallel culture. The pavilions try to promote these gorgeous events on one hand and emphasize on the artistic and cultural heritage of Milan on the other: from Leonardo’s Cenacolo to the Sala delle Asse of the Sforzesco Castle or from the archeological sites of the imperial Milan to the streams that cross the city; last, but not least, from the Museo del Novecento, under construction, up to the Grande Brera.
The agreement between the major Letizia Moratti and the minister of the cultural activities has established the realization  of this promotion plan. It’s a protocol that give birth to a great number of initiatives from the very beginning of September and that aim to give value to the works of art and the numerous monument of the city in order to attract the highest number of visitors.

Lucio Stanca, the executive chief of Società di Gestione Expo Milano 2015 S.p.A, handed his resignation with a long letter and left, with immediate effect, the board of directors convened yesterday the 24th June.  The ex executive chief’s resignation was taken for granted after disagreements with the chairman Diana Bracco, who had criticized Stanca management about expenses, control of expenditures and delays in project organization. In his four pages letter of resignation, Stanca talked about his impossibility in exercising his task in the company. For the future company structure, the most popular supposition is the disappearance of the executive chief role: instead of this figure, it will be introduced a general manager. For this position, directors have already advised Giuseppe Sala, ex manager of Pirelli company and general manager of Comune di Milano.

For those who are trying to find a profession, but also for those who are looking for a temporary job: Expo 2015 will be a big opportunity. As it comes out these days  from China, the Expo Shanghai is becoming more and more a source of employment, most of all for very young people and students: touristic guides, interpreters, translators, barmen or waiters in so many clubs and café inside the exposition area are only few examples of jobs available for such a lot of young people. While, in order to train a staff of young expert managers, on the 7th of June were selected ten Italian students which  on September will attend an international  master degree that for two years will involve in Shanghai twenty students from Italy and China.  The master degree entitled “Environmental Assessment and Integrated Management in Urban Areas” is the first high level training activity organized in the outline of an Expo. The Degree’s professional profile is targeted to train experts in tackling complex environmental problems and consequent policies, in line with Chinese Expo topic “Better city, better life”.