INGV: the MASSIMO project flies to Washington DC
Two important events aimed at disseminating the scientific and technological activities developed in Italy for the protection of cultural heritage took place in Washington DC in the United States of America
the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology (INGV) has recently presented, at the Italian Embassy and the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington DC, the activities carried out within the project PON01-02710 MASSIMO financed by the Ministry of Education , of the University and Research (MIUR) for the safeguarding of Cultural Heritage in seismic areas, illustrating: the infrastructural architecture, the relative monitoring system and the main technical-scientific results obtained on the demonstrators identified by the Calabria Region. The two workshops were attended by representatives of INGV, the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), the University of Calabria, as well as federal agencies such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Smithsonian Institution, Library of Congress, American agencies for development cooperation (USAID) National Gallery, with various American universities and research centers.
"The event", explains Maria Fabrizia Buongiorno, INGV researcher and scientific manager of the project, "was organized with the dual objective of presenting the technical capabilities developed by Italian research institutes and, at the same time, establishing a dialogue and operational with American institutions on possible synergies to address the complexity of the technological challenges necessary to improve the monitoring of the urban environment, paying particular attention to the surveillance, security and protection of urban areas and critical infrastructures (such as cultural heritage)".
Urbanized areas are very complex, constantly evolving environments, which therefore require real-time or near-real-time technological solutions, in order to ensure effective monitoring of resources and address multi-risk assessment, paying particular attention to coverage territorial, resolution and economic and temporal costs.
"Moreover, this workshop is part of the activities carried out by the 'Earth Science' working group coordinated by INGV and USGS (activated in 2013), under the scientific and technological cooperation agreement between Italy and the United States", continues Fabrizia Good morning.
The meeting ended with an event for dissemination purposes, dedicated to spreading the cultural and territorial wealth of the Calabria Region, the development site of the PON MASSIMO Project. The workshop, introduced by Minister Luca Franchetti Pardo, Deputy Head of Delegation of the Italian Embassy in the USA, focused on the presentation of the activities of INGV and ENEA for the monitoring and protection of cultural heritage in Calabria and on an activity to promote the cultural heritage of the same region and its treasures which are also part of the UNESCO Heritage, curated by the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Reggio Calabria, represented in Washington by the councilor Patrizia Nardi, intervening on the basis of a project by the National and Community Programming Department of the Calabria Region.
"The great participation in these events", adds the INGV researcher, "was made possible thanks to the organizational contribution offered by the scientific-technological cooperation office of the Italian Embassy in Washington and the support of the Italian Cultural Institute at the same embassy".
The second dissemination event was held at the World Bank's Washington office in which INGV and ENEA presented the technological solutions and approaches developed for the defense of Cultural Heritage subject to natural or man-made events, with the main objective of show the applicability and scalability of the various investigation, control and protection methodologies in contexts other than the Italian one. In particular, issues relating to technology transfer in developing countries were addressed.
“The World Bank has shown strong interest in the technologies shown, and possible support activities by INGV were discussed in the context of active projects in areas affected by catastrophic events”, concludes Maria Fabrizia Buongiorno.
Event at the Italian Embassy in Washington DC, link to images: http://bit.ly/1Imvjid
photo 1: Maria Fabrizia Good morning;
photo 2: Fawzi Doumaz;
photo 3: Gerardo De Canio (ENEA), Michael L. Blanpied (USGS) Arrigo Caserta and Fawzi Doumaz (INGV) Cory Wegener (Smithsonian Institute).
Rome, 22 December 2015