“I have decided to commit myself to giving a testimony of support to an excellent person, Eike Schmidt, who enjoys my respect and whom I consider an innovator: he was one as director of the Uffizi and I am sure he will also be one as mayor”. This is how Federico d’Annunzio, 60 years old, entrepreneur in the sector of new technologies and innovation, great-grandson of the Pope, explains, speaking to Adnkronos, his decision to run for the Florence City Council on the ‘Eike Schmidt Mayor’ civic list .
“I appreciate Eike’s propensity to achieve results, his concreteness, his moral rectitude, his willingness to listen, his attention to the common good: he could very well not have got involved in politics, he didn’t need it, and instead he demonstrated courage and it is a very appreciable choice”, declares the great-grandson of the writer and poet Gabriele d’Annunzio regarding the centre-right civic mayor candidate.
“Schmidt asked me to make my skills as an entrepreneur available in the field of digital transformation for the benefit of the citizens of Florence and I gladly accepted this invitation”, says the manager who can boast over 25 patents in the field of research.
Federico d’Annunzio specifies that his skills “should not be understood as a specific niche compared to the general problems of the city. Digital transformation covers the entire field of the electoral program, starting from the issue of security. New technologies, respecting privacy and laws, can facilitate the processes to respond to the requests of citizens, in particular young people”.
At the same time, he observes, “with new technologies it is possible to improve the relationship between the Municipality and the citizen, making it much more direct and immediate. It is possible to create a ‘citizen app’ to encourage participation in decision-making processes and at the same time to streamline bureaucracy and reduce public administration costs. With the app, for example, alarm mechanisms can be created in the event of danger or notifications to the public administration in real time, leaving a trace and total transparency of the report”.
With new technologies, concludes d’Annunzio, “the citizen of Florence can be made ‘privileged’. The so-called overtourism, for example, has certainly brought economic benefits to the city but has not improved the quality of life of the residents. Here: we must make residents ‘privileged’. How? I’m thinking of agreements for direct access to public administration, private companies or bodies. All this to facilitate citizen participatory democracy.”
