Biography

There is a year that marks the beginning of everything: 1982. Italy won the World Cup in Spain, Paolo Rossi became a legend, and I, in my bedroom already overflowing with skis, tennis rackets, balls, and hiking boots—because standing still was never an option—was opening the box of a Commodore 64. While the country celebrated with parades of cars painted in the tricolor, I was discovering BASIC. Both things, I must say, excited me in equal measure.

From there, the path followed an almost inevitable logic. At the Lorenzo Cobianchi Institute, I earned a Diploma in Electrical Engineering, followed by a post-diploma specialization as a Microprocessor Systems and Local Telecommunications Networks Designer—a title so long it alone took up half of the certificate. In the labs, I learned Pascal, Fortran, and then C, and I realized that this wasn't a passing phase: it was the common thread of everything that would come after.

And what came after took paths I hadn't predicted. Programmer in C++ and Clipper, technical support for well-known audio and video brands, and then, a plot twist: the confectionery industry. Now, with a last name like Ferrero, ending up working in the world of sweets has all the air of a written destiny. I am not related to the famous brand, let’s be clear, but that didn't stop colleagues, acquaintances, and even some customers from accompanying me for years with jokes that, I admit, I learned to anticipate before they even opened their mouths. "So, are you bringing us the Rochers?" Every. Single. Time.

Jokes aside, that season was my true training ground. Away from IT only in appearance, it taught me teamwork, safety culture, and responsibility on an industrial scale. And in the end, it brought me back to my world, through the computer management of warehouses. Meanwhile, my brain, undeterred, continued to update itself on PHP, Python, graphics, and video, as if it were afraid of getting bored.

Then there is a chapter that is particularly close to my heart: that of the trainer. Starting in 2006, I began with preparation for the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) courses, but that was only the first stage. Over time, the activity expanded: courses on various IT topics for training agencies and private individuals, always with the same underlying conviction: that technology must be at the service of people and not the other way around. From that long experience, a book was also born, "Patente Europea per il Computer: Strategie Pratiche ed Esercizi per Superare Facilmente l'Esame ECDL", published by Bruno Editore: an attempt to make accessible what is too often hidden behind unnecessarily difficult language. Until the last year, in which training naturally shifted to Artificial Intelligence, which in the meantime had become my main field of study.

Verbano-Cusio-Ossola, my territory, is another thread that runs through this entire journey. I have always had a visceral attachment to these mountains, these lakes, and this community—the kind of love that isn't well explained to those who don't have it, but that you recognize immediately in those who share it. When I had the tools to do so, it was almost obvious that I would also put them at its service. First with a portal dedicated to local hiking, then, since 2012, co-founding verbanianotizie.it, which today counts over two million visitors. And in parallel, quietly, about twenty websites created free of charge for local associations: sports, for the elderly, for children, for women in difficulty. I don't tell it to boast, but because it's part of who I am, and because I believe that technology, when it meets a real community, can do things that no algorithm knows how to fully measure.

Then, after closing the long season in a multinational, Artificial Intelligence arrived. Not to chase a fad—and in this field, fads run fast—but out of a genuine intellectual necessity. Over the last two years, I have studied this technology, trying to go beyond the background noise and the aggressive marketing that too often poisons it with unrealistic promises. I felt the need to tell the story of the real AI: the one made of bias, ethical issues, real potential but also precise and concrete limits. First came the guide "A Practical Guide to Using Artificial Intelligence", written together with my lifelong friend Matteo Baccan. Then, almost by force of gravity, aitalk.it: not a project with a business plan, but a logbook. A place to filter the noise and offer some clarity to those who really want to understand, without being blinded by the spotlights.

The analyses published here have found, with pleasure and a certain surprise, the attention of some industry publications: from Codemotion to Tech360, and Mokabyte.

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans," John Lennon said it, and he was right then as he is now. The future doesn't allow itself to be planned, and honestly, that's the part I find most interesting. I don't know what trajectory this path will take, but I am sincerely curious to find out. If you found something here that made you think, that sparked a question, or even just raised an eyebrow, write to me. We might discover that a piece of that trajectory, for a stretch, coincides.

Welcome to aitalk.it: here we don't try to sell the future. We try to take it apart, piece by piece.