Campus Party - what is it?

The peculiarity of the Campus Party is a prepared "campus" with tents, where participants can sleep. 

This time, in the exhibition center of Ro Fiera near Milan, one pavilion was occupied with daily "activity" (lectures and seminars were held at eight venues), and the next pavilion - night "activity" (3000 tents we established there beforehand). As a result, about 2,500 tents were used. And many (like me) after listening to lectures, went back to sleep at home.

3000 tents were installed in the village area, photo © Evgeny Utkin

The Festival was attended mainly by students, but there were both children and people of advanced age. They all wanted to listen to the speakers, which were 350 in five days, and they spoke about most extensive topics - from exploring the depths of the world to the secrets of the cosmos, from mathematics and physics to the art of programming. But, in addition, you could see tables for tennis, playgrounds for football and a lot of computers where you could play games, from the very first - tetris and tennis.

The main audience of the Festival were students, photo © Evgeny Utkin

In addition, teams and private students worked on projects that could improve the lives of people and sponsor companies. The best projects were awarded with money, trips to the USA, training courses. And what is especially important for students and young people was presence of Job Factory, where they could talk with Randstad recruiters, and directly with employees of large companies - AXA, IGPDecaux, Nexi, RDS, Eni, Lottomatica, Italiaonline, A2A Smart City, Accenture, and even in the format Reverse Mentoring, i.e. when the students could rate the companies and their employees, talk about the shortcomings and opportunities to improve it.

350 speakers performed for 5 days, photo © Evgeny Utkin

As noted by the famous TV host and journalist Enrico Mentana, about 40% of Italian youth from 25 to 34 years old do not have a job. And this is the future of the country. And he announced the launch of an online newspaper, which recruits 20 journalists, who will have a "regular journalist contract", which is distinguished by a nemesis of wages and many social benefits - a long vacation, the possibility of training, medical insurance. So, in a few days he received more than 5000 requests, and said that more than 20 thousand are expected. A good competition, 1000 applications for a place, and how to choose?

Enrico Mentana launches online newspaper, photo © Evgeny Utkin

On the main stage of the Festival were the mathematician from Berkeley Edward Frenkel, the first man with the artificial eye Rob Spence, the hacker and futurist George Hotz, the pioneer of the Open Source movement and the executive director of the Linux Professional Institute Jon "Maddog" Hall, one of the discoverers of the Higgs boson physicist Guido Tonelli, director for Innovation of the Bank Mediolanum Oscar di Montigny, founder of Italia online Antonio Converti and many others. Marco Tempest amazed with his digital tricks and drones, which obeyed by the look and gesture.

Antonio Converti, founder of Italia online, photo © Evgeny Utkin

"We are proud of this second Campus Party Festival success. Our task - "to rewrite the source code of Italy" - aroused great enthusiasm among thousands of young people and all companies, universities and institutions that believed in us. In Italy, Campus Party is held for the second time, but in the world it has already been held in 12 countries. The last festival was in Brazil, in São Paulo this year, brought together 150,000 participants", - said Carlo Cozza, the president of Campus Party Global.

Evgeni Utkin, Milan, Italy

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