Curiosity, inspiration, action. Curiosity is needed to give the right input to intelligence, but inspiration is needed for intelligence to translate into ideas of value and, finally, action is needed for ideas to become concrete. It started from here the eleventh edition of TedX Padova, at the Congress Centerwith eleven voices taking turns on stage for the audience to challenge preconceptions, urban legends and bias that often guide our decisions and our views of the world.
Ideas change the world
«Our beliefs guide our actions», the first to take the stage is Alessandro Mora, author and international speaker, passionate student of the mind for thirty years. “Nevertheless our ideas, alone, however extraordinary and revolutionary, are not enough. Myths come to our aid: collective beliefs, certainties linked to an idea. The more rooted they are, the more powerful they are. This is why we need to dispel false myths. They create expectations in the prefrontal cortex, just behind our foreheads, that can activate or inhibit our behaviors. AND they also apply to other people: they influence our children, the students, the people who work with us.” There is only one question that every person should ask themselves: «What are the beliefs that guide my life? If they aren’t all useful, it would be worth debunking them » he says.
A cult event
The conference-show is now a cult for the people of Padua, it is the privileged meeting place for sharing innovative ideas, where the human potential of the community is stimulated. Putting yourself deeply into the game. As Ilaria Capponi, second speaker, model and entrepreneur, did: «After 17 years of catwalks I know that there body positivity it’s still a utopian hypocrisy and 95% of the models on the 2024 catwalks are underweight».
Ilaria defines herself as a “survivor” of the lights and sequins of fashion. Centuries of philosophical thought – perfection does not exist, we can strive for it all our lives, but we won’t reach it – do not seem to have taught much if a young former model reveals: «That spasmodic search for the perfection of weight, which responded to the canons of fashion, it has me condemned to unhappiness for years. Today that, through social media, we are perfectable and perfected models of ourselves, we all risk this condemnation, but especially the kids who tell their stories through the filters of online narration. We need to give voice to the right values: humility, dignity, honesty, gratitude. Models that cannot be measured with the centimeter that I have used for years to measure my value: as a woman, mother, wife and professional, strangling every opportunity.”
A kick to preconceptions
From the stage of the Congress Center the discussions were reversed: Umberto Castiello, neuroscientist, in search of “plant cognition”, demonstrated the intelligence of plants; Francesco Nori from Padua, director of the Google DeepMind robotics laboratory, questioned robotics, asking the public if robots were strong and unstoppable or empathetic and close to us: «For years I asked myself whether technology was good or bad» he reveals «Ai can interact with us in a natural way, it can learn, and yet I don’t have an answer because the truth is that it depends on us».
The same substance as dreams
Quoting Shakespeare, Alfredo Giacon and Nicoletta Siviero told their thirty-year story at sea, after having left everything in pursuit of a dream: «What if dreams were our inspiration?», they ask, «we won’t be the ones to tell you how to live your life, but don’t fall into the social trap that you need a lot of money to make dreams come true. We, not owning anything that stereotypes say is necessary – the car, the bicycle – felt like masters of the wind.”
You don’t need to live in the middle of the ocean to change. It is enough to overturn an all-too-current axiom: the woman takes care of the house and the children. As Diego Di Franco did, stay at home dad by choice: «Women react with “wow” or “wow”, depending on the area; men mostly look at me as if to say “good” or “fess”. Why in our country, certain things are taken for granted: the mother takes care of the creatures, so much so that they call me “mammo”. Instead, my family isn’t strange, it’s just like the others. When we are no longer called “mums” we will be in a good place. When a working woman is not defined as “career” we will be at a good point. When mothers and fathers, men and women, know how to do the same things and we no longer talk about it, then we will be finished.”
Saturday was a bold day. Stereotypes have been thrown down with stubborn determination: the political scientist who studies migratory phenomena (Stefano Allievi), the record-breaking astrophysicist and pilot (Donatella Ricci), the actress and web star with over a million followers (Ludovica Di Donato), the startupper Forbes Under 30 (Laura Sposato) and the journalist who overturns stereotypes on motherhood and family (Simonetta Sciandivasci Montemurro).
