Mario Polino is 33 years old and has a lot of black, curly hair hinting at an originality expressed through knowing how to be a hacker: that is, knowing how to hack a computer system in order to protect it. He is a Cyber security researcher at the Department of Electronics Information and Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milanoand captain of the team Mhackeroni, , an inter-university group of about 60 people where Politecnico, with its internal team 'Tower of Hanoi', is the most represented.
Polino told us about an Italian victory in a very prestigious competition open to everyone, not just universities, held in August 2023 in Las Vegas: Hack a-Sat (ie ‘hack a satellite’). It was organised by the US Department of Defence, which launched a real satellite into space, and took place during the DEF CON 31 conference (10-13 August 2023) in Las Vegas. To have an idea of the level of this competition, the organising body (Air Force Research Laboratory) is the same one that devised the GPS system.
Over 300 teams from all over the world took part in the competition, but only five made it to the final in Las Vegas: one Italian, one German, one Polish and two mixed US-UK teams.
‘These competitions are not just about attack-violation, they are often also about defence, namely protecting systems by identifying and strengthening vulnerable areas. It is, in practice, a matter of seeking or protecting sensitive data'.
In the case of the Las Vegas competition, the situation was one of attack. This is what the five teams had to do: ‘We had to violate the security of the satellite in orbit; in other words we had to be able to control it and make it take pictures in the various Red Zones’.
'Technically,' Polino added, 'it was a matter of writing programmes to make the satellite think it was flying over a free zone instead of one of the red zones.
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In the era of Big Data, disciplines such as information design and data visualisation are crucial to make the enormous amount of information we have in every area of human knowledge understandable and exploitable. Federica Fragapane sure knows that. After graduating in Communication Design at Politecnico di Milano, she succeeded in building a fascinating career in this field, becoming a reference point for the design of infographics for La Lettura, the cultural insert of Corriere della Sera, and going on to collect collaborations with other newspapers, from Scientific American to BBC Science Focus, and with a wide range of organisations, associations and companies ranging from Google to the UN. Never, however, would the 35-year-old have expected that three of her data visualisations would be acquired by the Department of Architecture and Design of New York's MoMa as part of the museum's permanent collection. A great satisfaction, thanks to a creative and experimental approach based on the representation of complexity through visual interfaces other than traditional bar, pie, Cartesian or histogram graphs, and on the idea that aesthetics count as much as content.
The idea is to graphically suggest aspects that tend to be excluded from purely statistical analysis - which, despite its scientific rigour, risks concealing the many facets of the complexity of reality in which we are immersed and the relativity of our gaze. Meaningful, in this regard, is Federica's choice to draw autumn-hued leaves in one of the projects selected by MoMa, ‘Land Defenders’, published in the magazine Atmos to accompany an investigation by journalist Yessenia Funes and dedicated to the environmentalists killed in Brazil between 2015 and 2019. Or again, to draw a sort of red snake to visualise the levels of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. It is a matter of focusing on what Fragapane defines as ‘visual words, no less important than textual ones and able, with their evocative power, to give life to a visual tale that is also open to emotion’.
‘After attending university I worked for a few years at Accurat, an information design studio based in Milan and New York, and already there I breathed the air of experimentation,’ says Fragapane. ‘When I became a freelancer, following my instincts and spending a lot of time at the PC and among books looking for visual inspirations, but without necessarily wanting to define a precise style, I found myself attracted above all by what had to do with nature and the world of living organisms. From that moment on, I started to use organic, soft figures, far removed from those that usually populate infographics, and over time this became a conscious and meaningful practice. For me, not only are those forms beautiful, but they also recall two concepts: on the one hand, the life behind the data themselves, the fact that behind the numbers and percentages I outline there are often stories of people or ecosystems, humanity, a “living being”, and I believe it is essential to render this graphically; on the other hand, the relativity, non-neutrality and imperfection of those data, which, beyond the reliability of the sources I use, are inevitably the result of human research.’
Some will object that this approach may undermine the user's perception of scientific merit, but for Fragapane this is a false problem. ‘I think intellectual honesty is needed to state that there is always someone behind the collection and processing of data - which for me does not undermine a study’s authority. On the contrary, that very honesty can strongly contribute to building trust in numbers and science'. Underlying this is the belief that in every information design project clarity and display beauty must be intertwined while adapting to the target audience. ‘It deals with caring about what you do and caring about the group of people you address. Also, when the purpose of a survey is informative, I like to think that an aesthetically pleasing infographic can become an invitation to read and explore. Aesthetics is not a fad, a finishing touch: it is an integral part of the communication process'
Want to read this and many other news stories in full in print format? From January for members will be available the new MAP, the Alumni magazine -> to receive it donate here!
The attoseconds one is among the most relevant scientific stories of the last 100 years - one of those stories where something seems impossible... until it is done. It is also one of those stories that perfectly tell how a scientific discovery is the result of collective efforts by a community of scientists working together, for decades, even at a distance (and they did it even when it was not mainstream).
And it is a story that culminates (but does not end) in 2023 with the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics to three scientists: Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier, 'for experimental methods that generate attosecond pulses of light for the study of electron dynamics in matter'. Following this assignment, other scientists have emerged who have strongly contributed to the recent discoveries - and in particular one that concerns us very closely.
At the Department of Physics of Politecnico di Milano, Mauro Nisoli is Professor of Physics of Matter and Director of the Attosecond Research Centre laboratory. He is a pioneer of attosecond physics and the work of his research group is behind the experiments that led to the generation and characterisation of 'extremely short' light pulses, lasting a billionth of a billionth of a second, used to study the motion of electrons within atoms and molecules.
We asked him to tell us this story: here is how it went.
A GROUP OF PHYSICISTS WANT TO 'SEE' HOW ELECTRONS MOVE WITHIN MATTER AFTER INTERACTION WITH LIGHT
The story of this Nobel Prize - and of attoseconds - begins in the 1980s, when some scientists set out to look at what happens inside molecules - and atoms - when hit by a short, high-energy light pulse. But there’s a problem: electrons move faster than our instruments can pick up at the time. While the motion of atoms takes place on the femtosecond time scale (one femtosecond is equal to one millionth of a billionth of a second, namely 10-15 seconds), electrons move much faster, on the attosecond time scale, namely 10-18 seconds. Therefore, if we want to be able to follow (and measure) the motion of electrons, we must use laser pulses with durations of less than a femtosecond.
💡WHAT IS AN ATTOSECOND?💡
It is a unit of time and represents the time scale suitable for tracking the motion of electrons in atoms and molecules. One attosecond is equal to one millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second. No comparisons exist that allow us to understand how small this unit of time is: we sometimes read that the number of attoseconds in a second is comparable to the number of seconds that have elapsed from the beginning of the Universe, 13.8 billion years ago, to today.
The point is... you cannot produce light pulses lasting shorter than one optical cycle, which is determined by the wavelength of light. Typically, a femtosecond laser produces pulses in the visible or near-infrared region. In order to generate attosecond pulses, the wavelength of light must first be shortened. In the 1980s this seemed an impossible feat. But still...
Want to read this and many other news stories in full in print? From January for members will be available the new MAP, the Alumni magazine -> to receive it at home dona here!
Politecnico is at the top of the world rankings of universities also thanks to the frontier scientific research it carries out in its laboratories. The protagonists of this Italian record are the approximately 3,500 scientists and researchers of Politecnico. Among the hottest topics are obviously those related to the systemic transformation towards climate neutrality; and then, the world of digital, space exploration, life sciences, the movements embraced by the New European Bauhaus, the new frontiers in the study of matter... In particular, young researchers inject new life into the research system and grow innovative scientific strands. Politecnico invests in activities aimed precisely at encouraging young scientists of excellence to join in. Among many, this year we welcome twelve new young researchers who are among the best of their generation. They are here at Politecnico di Milano thanks to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship programme. Let us introduce them... in alphabetical order.
ANDREA LILIANA PACHECO TOBO aims to pioneer the development of photonics-based spectroscopy and thermometry methods for clinical solutions, to distinguish tissue undergoing coagulative necrosis and/or hyperthermia from normal healthy tissue during tumour removal by thermal ablation. To achieve this goal, she tells us, " 1(1) I will study endogenous concentrations of optical biomarkers useful for differentiating ablation margins; (2) I will develop a tissue phantom to recreate the thermal gradients and optical properties of the main tissue ablation zones; (3) I will conduct observational studies to collect data in-situ from animals undergoing cancer treatment with laser ablation; and (4) I will develop data acquisition and processing algorithms for detecting the ablation margin based on the results of spectrometric and thermometric measurements acquired with both phantoms and animal studies”. The technology to be developed can minimise the destruction of healthy tissue surrounding the lesions while obtaining a complete section of the tumour.
Politecnico is at the top of the world rankings of universities also thanks to the frontier scientific research it carries out in its laboratories. The protagonists of this Italian record are the approximately 3,500 scientists and researchers of Politecnico. Among the hottest topics are obviously those related to the systemic transformation towards climate neutrality; and then, the world of digital, space exploration, life sciences, the movements embraced by the New European Bauhaus, the new frontiers in the study of matter... In particular, young researchers inject new life into the research system and grow innovative scientific strands. Politecnico invests in activities aimed precisely at encouraging young scientists of excellence to join in. Among many, this year we welcome twelve new young researchers who are among the best of their generation. They are here at Politecnico di Milano thanks to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship programme. Let us introduce them... in alphabetical order.
FEDERICA SEBASTIANI studies the relation between the structure and function of biocolloids and biomimetic systems. In recent years, she has been working on drug delivery, a process that enables medicines to reach areas of the body affected by a disease. "The formulation of nanocarriers (i.e., nanometric particles that carry drugs) has attracted increasing attention in recent decades. In particular, the possibility of combining therapeutic and imaging capabilities in a single nanoplatform (theranostics) has been widely explored to advance therapeutic approaches and promote the transition from conventional medicine to personalised medicine”. Sebastiani will study lipid nanocarriers for gene delivery. drug delivery, il processo che consente alle medicine di raggiungere zone del corpo colpite da patologie. “La formulazione di nanocarrier (cioè particelle nanometriche che trasportano i farmaci) ha attirato una crescente attenzione negli ultimi decenni. In particolare, la possibilità di combinare funzionalità terapeutiche e di imaging in un’unica nanopiattaforma (teranostica) è stata ampiamente esplorata per far progredire gli approcci terapeutici e promuovere la transizione dalla medicina convenzionale alla medicina personalizzata”. Sebastiani studierà nanocarrier lipidici per la consegna genica.
Politecnico di Milano was established on 29 November 1863 and this year celebrates its 160th anniversary, a milestone that marks a path of innovation, education and research in which the University has made significant contributions to the technological, social and economic development of Italy.
Today, on the occasion of this anniversary, Politecnico continues to look forward, establishing itself as a reference point for innovation, and in this historical moment, innovation means Artificial Intelligence.
160 years of history have taught us that true innovation is based on an awareness of the past and a vision of the future.o
Rector of Politecnico di Milano Donatella Sciuto says.
Today, more than ever, we are called upon to design the future, to lead the change and to respond to the global challenges ahead. Politecnico di Milano has been involved in the study of AI for over 50 years. Our University has established itself as a major centre for Artificial Intelligence, with a transversal and pervasive approach within all areas of research and innovation. Artificial Intelligence represents a paradigm shift, and as a University we have a responsibility to educate new generations in the conscious use of knowledge.
In addition to Rector Donatella Sciuto, the opening ceremony of the 161st Academic Year was also attended by Veronica Marrocu, President of the Student Board at Politecnico di Milano; Mariarosaria Taddeo, Professor in Digital Ethics and Defence Technologies at Oxford University; Roberto Viola, Director General for Digital Policies at the European Commission; Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan; Attilio Fontana, President of the Lombardy Region; Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation Research Culture Education and Youth at the European Commission.
We often read stories of brain drain, brilliant minds leaving their countries to seek their fortune abroad. The story of Arsène Héma, co-founder of the digital fabrication laboratory InViis Lab, is that of a man who left his country without ever really leaving it, as his idea was of studying abroad to then go back to Africa to put into practice the knowledge acquired. After specialising with a master's degree in telecommunications at Politecnico in 2009 and going back to Burkina Faso in 2010, Héma admits that his initial idea “was to work as a teacher, not to become an entrepreneur”. When he arrived at Paoli, he realised that the two things did not exclude each other, and so he decided to open the company 'InViis Lab' in Burkina Faso in collaboration with Hubert N'Do who manages the commercial aspects of the enterprise. This FabLab (a digital fabrication lab) provides students and entrepreneurs with state-of-the-art technological equipment to improve their skills and bring their innovative ideas to life, accompanying them in the development of fundable prototypes and sustainable business models.
The beginnings at Politecnico
Héma was born and raised in Côte d'Ivoire, but his parents are from Burkina Faso. After studying electronics, he became interested in research and development (in 2004 I developed a telephone for my thesis, he tells us): "A Spanish friend told me about Politecnico di Milano: I applied for a scholarship through Fondazione Rui and in September 2005 I arrived in Milan”, he explains. After overcoming the trauma of 'cold weather'(in Côte d'Ivoire temperature was 35 degrees, when I arrived in Milan it was 17! I had never felt such a cold climate, he smiles), his Italian adventure began: “I had to learn Italian from scratch, and I was enrolled in a master's programme in telecommunications: the level was high, and most of the other students had already attended Politecnico for their first-level degree”, he says. "Moreover, the scholarship did not cover everything, so I had to work and learn not to procrastinate".
The meeting with Decina and the return to Africa
A decisive meeting is the one with professor Maurizio Decina: "He made me realise that I could be a teacher and an entrepreneur, just like him”, Héma says. Thus, at the end of his studies at Politecnico, Héma went back to Africa: “My parents had decided to go back to Burkina Faso, I went the idea of just visiting them, but in the end, I never left: there I got to know an environment which, although close to Côte d'Ivoire, is very different'. Building on his experience in Milan, Héma worked in support of other entrepreneurs, then in the biomedical field as head of operations, and finally as professor of telecommunications service development technology at the University in Burkina Faso (a position he still holds).
The contact with Fondazione Aurora
As is often the case, it is a mutual friend - Cleophas Adrien Dioma - that allows Marta Sachy, director of the Aurora ETS Foundation (an organization that works to strengthen entrepreneurial initiatives in Africa), and Arsène Héma to get to know each other. "The foundation was following a water access project in the west of Burkina Faso, specifically in the village where my parents are from," Héma explains. "They were looking for someone to support them in accompanying the drilling venture that was also started thanks to the support of the Aurora Foundation, dealing in particular with relations with local authorities. And that's how I met Marta."
"Arséne's work is really important because she acts as a bridge, including a cultural one, between Aurora Foundation, the enterprise and African institutions," Sachy says.
The birth of InViis Lab
When Héma told Sachy about InViis Lab, Fondazione Aurora decided to collaborate. The Foundation has already presented InViis Lab twice in Italy, the first time at the Stock Exchange in Milan, the second time in Rome as part of the Italy-Africa Business Week. "The name InViis Lab comes from the Latin in viis - meaning in the street, around people - but also from the vernacular Latin beyond the finish line, beyond the wait”, Héma explains.
"Our goal at InViis is not to invent new things: we want to take inspiration from things that already exist and improve on them, avoiding making the same mistakes”, Héma emphasises. For the time being, the company specialises in three areas: electronics, the Internet of Things (which includes smartphones and smart home appliances) and telecommunications.
Solving real problems
"We want to develop projects that respond to the real needs of the local reality in Burkina Faso, such as agriculture and fish farming: our idea is to find technological but real solutions to make life easier for workers and help them earn more money”, Héma explains.
In addition to helping those who have an idea to develop, InViis will also offer recognised training, issuing certificates that are also valid outside Burkina Faso. “Our biggest dream is for InViis Lab to become a benchmark for research and development of innovations”, Héma says.
Who can participate and when it opens
Who can use the services of InViis Lab? “There is no minimum age or education level to propose an idea: if your idea is good, we listen to you”, Héma replies. "There will be a scientific committee that will do an initial screening, and then we will offer different levels of membership dedicated to university students, individuals or companies”.
InViis Lab targets three main customer groups:
the membership programme is designed for autonomous innovators and allows for direct use of the lab's equipment, including 3D printers, PCs, CNC milling machines and laser engravers, welding stations, oscilloscopes and multimeters, and Arduino learning kits;
students and employees of private companies and public offices will be able to receive professional training courses and workshops to develop digital and entrepreneurial skills, including through partnerships with universities and research centers;
building on their ICT and business expertise, Arsène’s team will also offer research and development, optimisation, prototyping and validation services on behalf of companies and start-ups with innovative ideas.
InViis Lab started its first projects in August 2023, most notably the programming and installation of a set of LED panels for a banking institution in Ouagadougou, thanks in part to the support of three trainees from local engineering universities. "If all goes well, we expect to move to production and commercialization of these and other projects already after a year of testing: they would solve very important problems in Burkina Faso, while also saving the government a lot of money," Héma explains.
How can we help?
Is it possible to contribute to the success of this project? "Certainly, by sharing this article and spreading the word about InViis Lab's activities with your networks of contacts you can help us establish new opportunities for international collaborations and partnerships, thus contributing to the company's growth," Héma replies. "We also invite those who would like to support InViis Lab to get in touch with us by contributing to the investments we are making to further equip the lab, especially with tools that offer more mobility to be able to test solutions in the field."
"Every day at Polimi we work to do things that have a positive impact, to improve the world we live in and the way we live. That's our true and only mission: and that's what drives us to study, teach, work, do, with great passion."
This is how Enrico Zio, president Alumni Politecnico di Milano, opens the discussion, kicking off a moment of insight and discussion between senior university officials and the Alumni community.
683 Alumni attended the live event, crowding the Politecnico di Milano lecture hall-more than 200 followed and commented on the online discussion. Making an impact, it turns out, is by no means a triviality. Especially when the rudder is pointed firmly in the direction of sustainable growth:
"it means first taking care of people and their environment."
comments Rector Donatella Sciuto, in her first year in this position on the Alumni stage. From a need for sustainability, she explains, "important challenges arise to which research must respond. Technologies in materials, architecture and design are directed at creating a sustainable environment for the future, the one we will leave to young people."
The next generations are at the center of the discourse: it is with this perspective on the future that Sciuto invites us to consider "the other side of the coin" of development, for example, the great energy impact of machine learning technologies, just to name one, and introduces at all levels of academic discourse, from research, to teaching, to the relationship with the territory, an ethical dimension that leads us to think about our impact in the world.
Politecnico is at the top of the world rankings of universities also thanks to the frontier scientific research it carries out in its laboratories. The protagonists of this Italian record are the approximately 3,500 scientists and researchers of Politecnico. Among the hottest topics are obviously those related to the systemic transformation towards climate neutrality; and then, the world of digital, space exploration, life sciences, the movements embraced by the New European Bauhaus, the new frontiers in the study of matter... In particular, young researchers inject new life into the research system and grow innovative scientific strands. Politecnico invests in activities aimed precisely at encouraging young scientists of excellence to join in. Among many, this year we welcome twelve new young researchers who are among the best of their generation. They are here at Politecnico di Milano thanks to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship programme. Let us introduce them... in alphabetical order.
CARMINE GIORDANO works on simulating the dynamics of the solar system. "Thousands of spacecraft will permeate the solar system within a few years. However, there is no autopilot in space and everything still needs to be controlled from the ground. At the same time, there is enormous interest in smaller bodies, such as asteroids or comets, both for exploration reasons (they can give us valuable information about the origin of the solar system and life on Earth) and for economic reasons (they are made of rare materials useful in terrestrial applications). My project builds on these two problems and aims to develop autonomous guidance and control algorithms for CubeSats in the vicinity of smaller bodies, using low-power, high-performance computing boards."
Politecnico is at the top of the world rankings of universities also thanks to the frontier scientific research it carries out in its laboratories. The protagonists of this Italian record are the approximately 3,500 scientists and researchers of Politecnico. Among the hottest topics are obviously those related to the systemic transformation towards climate neutrality; and then, the world of digital, space exploration, life sciences, the movements embraced by the New European Bauhaus, the new frontiers in the study of matter... In particular, young researchers inject new life into the research system and grow innovative scientific strands. Politecnico invests in activities aimed precisely at encouraging young scientists of excellence to join in. Among many, this year we welcome twelve new young researchers who are among the best of their generation. They are here at Politecnico di Milano thanks to the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) fellowship programme. Let us introduce them... in alphabetical order.
Caterina Brighi
CATERINA BRIGHI tells us: "Aggressive brain tumours have an extremely poor prognosis. The relapse is caused by particular biological properties of certain brain regions, which make them resistant to current treatments. Tumour hypoxia (low oxygenation) is the main cause of resistance to radiotherapy in brain tumours and is linked to poor patient prognosis. Effectively counteracting tumour hypoxia requires the selective administration of higher doses of radiation while limiting its toxicity, which is difficult to do with conventional radiotherapy treatments. With my project, I aim to improve radiation treatment for aggressive brain tumours by combining quantitative MRI/PET imaging, to characterise regions of tumour hypoxia in a non invasive way, and carbon ion radiotherapy, to deliver higher doses of radiation to those regions while sparing surrounding healthy tissue. This strategy will provide a more effective distribution of the radiation dose, thus offering the opportunity to improve survival outcomes and quality of life for patients”.
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