50 Years Old!
By Mauro Rizzolo, ASSIOT President FEDERTEC Board of Directors
A poem by Ernest Hemingway begins with “You are not your age” and goes on to list all the reasons why “You are so much more”: these concepts come to my mind when I realize that, this year, ASSIOT is celebrating 50 years since its establishment, which took place in December 1971 thanks to a few companies’ far-sighted initiative. The 50-year milestone is important; it’s the time when you inevitably take stock: good and bad days, the choices made, the paths taken, mistakes and achievements, both the little and the big ones. When you turn 50, you are probably frightened because you consider your birthday as the end of youth and the beginning of old age but, actually, it is not so. At the age of 50, your “mature youth” begins: you are wiser and more aware not only of your own possibilities and potential but also, and above all, of what you wish. You are no longer content to be around people you don’t like. You are no longer willing to accept doing things you don’t like. You are ready to follow your most intimate desires and to please yourself. In short, this age brings your real “I” to the surface. This comparison is absolutely fitting with the ASSIOT reality: in this phase we fearlessly intend to pursue the path of a new form of aggregation, focused on combined technologies and competences and no longer on the product in itself. We are determined to follow the path that will bring the “real ASSIOT” to the surface. In a world in which the diffusion of means of communication and processes of mediatization and computerization leads to rapid and profound transformations of the forms of social interaction, questions arise about whether we are facing a strong impoverishment of interpersonal interaction, favouring instead growing atomization and disintegration of relationships, individualism and isolation in selfish horizons. At the same time, however, we are witnessing, almost as a reaction, the development of new and lively forms of solidarity, through various and widespread types of more or less formalized social aggregations, associations and voluntary groups.
Thus, even in this analysis, associations emerge as an important value of reaction and development: we are understanding this aspect well, especially during the pandemic. Therefore, I can say with absolute certainty that the future of associations is not in question, but is an integral part of development for all of us. We have been, together with ASSOFLUID, promoters of the constitution of FEDERTEC, whose intent is to redesign the concept of associationism, trying to represent an ecosystem that includes all the players of the technological chain that create value and providing each technological cluster the right visibility and specific identity: the path has just begun and it is a harbinger of a rosy future.