Annual report 2004 - Compagnia di San Paolo

Institutional activities in 2004
Education
The “Polimedia”
project at the Mario
Boella Institute
for graduates in Europe and run in Italy by CIRSIS – Interdepartmental Study and Research Centre
on Higher Education Systems of Pavia University.
The Compagnia furthermore has supported important public opportunities for discussion, such as
the Eighth International Congress of Educating Cities, which was held in Genoa in November 2004.
Special partner for many of the activities described was the Foundation for Schools, one of the
Compagnia’s permanent organisations, created with the aim of supporting, by an operative role, the
introduction of self-governing schools (for a description of the activities of the Foundation in 2004,
see the appropriate schedule in the section Permanent Organisations).
On line course on the history of industry in the North-West of Italy
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This project, under the auspices of CSI Piedmont and the
Department of Science of Education and Training of Turin
University in co-operation with the Foundation for Schools
(one of the Compagnia’s permanent organisations),
provides for the production of a multimedia programme for
the study of the history of industry in the North-West
(Piedmont, Liguria and the Aosta Valley) from 1850 to the
present day. Materials originating from the past of the
productive units will be located and organised to produce
an on line course which allows the young people to
investigate in more depth the history of industrial,
technological and employment development in the three
regions referred to. High school students are not only the
principal users of the course, but will be involved in the
transformation of the materials emanating from company
archives or from small local museums into documentary
sources and teaching units. From the technological point
of view, the innovative idea consists of applying to the
development of on line courses the principle of free
software, for which many parties contribute with their own
resources to the individual parts of a system in exchange
for free access to the entire system. The Compagnia
awarded grants of € 320,000 in favour of the CSI for the
project in 2004.