Discover the visionary who helped shape the future of computing while redefining the role of business in society.
Adriano Olivetti:
The Italian Who Invented the Personal Computer
Thursday November 26, 2026 | 6:30 pm ET
Father Madden Hall | St. Michael’s College
100 St Joseph St. | Toronto
Free event – Registration required
To register on Eventbrite click here
Edited by Prof. Luigi Troiani, this book celebrates Adriano Olivetti’s extraordinary legacy of innovation, design, and human dignity. Prof. Troiani will be joined in the presentation by Marco Zeppieri Vice President of the Fondazione Buozzi, Prof. Roberto Damiani, and Prof. Paolo Granata from University of Toronto.
From the pioneering P101 personal computer to his revolutionary vision of industry and community, explore how Olivetti united technology, beauty, and social responsibility. His influence even reached NASA’s Apollo 11 mission and inspired IBM’s leadership in industrial design.
Produced by the Bruno Buozzi Foundation with the support of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the book offers an inspiring reflection on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the enduring value of human dignity.
Join us to rediscover the Italian visionary whose ideas continue to resonate today.
The event is part of the Goggio Lecture Series. Participants will receive a copy of the book.
Luigi Troiani is the Coordinator of the Adriano Olivetti Research Group (2026) and editor of the resulting book. Professor In Charge of International Relations at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome. Columnist for La Voce di New York. Coordinator of the Scientific Committee of the Bruno Buozzi Foundation. Co-Editor of the Revue de l’Université Notre-Dame du Kasayi, Kananga, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Essayist, novelist, and poet. Frequent guest and commentator on RAI television and radio programmes, and speaker at international conferences.
Recent Awards and Distinctions
2023: Il Libro National Award for Il comandante restò sulla collina
2024: International Pleiade Award for La diplomazia dell’Arroganza. Potenze e sistema internazionale nel XXI secolo
2024: Amerigo Award for Best Online Journalists
Among his recent essays: Quo Vadis EU, edt., (2024), La diplomazia dell’arroganza (2023)
Marco Zeppieri Project Leader of the Adriano Olivetti Research Project (2026). Vice-President of the Bruno Buozzi Foundation. Communications expert. Contributed to the launch of Honda automobiles in the Italian market. Has worked with UIL (Italian Labour Union) and ADOC (Association for Consumer Protection and Guidance).
Roberto Damiani is a designer, curator, and scholar whose work investigates the intellectual discourses and spatial manifestations of the public and the common in architecture and urbanism through an approach that brings together history, theory, and design perspectives.
Damiani’s interest in the public is the most evident in the recent book he edited The Architect and the Public: On George Baird’s Contribution to Architecture (Quodlibet, 2020) which gathers multiple voices on the Canadian architect and Daniels Professor Emeritus George Baird’s theoretical work and teaching. The volume was awarded a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
Damiani holds a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Urbanism from the University of Pescara with a dissertation on Aldo Rossi’s, Colin Rowe’s, and Oswald M. Ungers’s contribution to the teaching and practice of modern urban design. Some excerpts of his doctoral research have been exhibited at the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale and will be published in the forthcoming volumes Radical Pedagogies (MIT Press, 2022) and Histories of Architecture Education in the United States (Routledge, 2022). Other shorter writings on the teaching and practice of urbanism have appeared in the journals JAE, OASE, Scapegoat, and San Rocco.
Damiani’s design work on contemporary public space has been recognized in the international competition Toronto: Middle City Passages, 2015 and the exhibitions Call to Order (2015) at the University of Miami and Unfolding Pavilion (2018) in Venice and published in the Bauhaus’s journal Horizonte. In Toronto, he is the organizer and curator of Italy under Construction, a series of public lectures and exhibitions on contemporary architecture in Italy sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute in Toronto (iuctoronto.it).
Damiani held teaching and research positions at Cornell University, the University of Waterloo, and the Daniels Faculty, where he is now teaching in the undergraduate and graduate programs.
Paolo Granata is a Professor of Book and Media Studies at the University of Toronto’s St. Michael’s College and a Fellow at the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society. An award-winning educator and internationally recognized media scholar, his work spans media ecology, semiotics, educational technologies, and philosophy of technology. He is the founder and director of the Media Ethics Lab and has held academic positions in Italy, Canada, Brazil, and China. His latest book is Generative Knowledge: Think, Learn, Create with AI (Wiley, 2026).