The most inspiring week of my life

Archon joined the Hello Tomorrow Conference 2015, so last week I travelled to Paris.

And there I met some of the best people of the world, those that change the world, not only in the computer science world, but in every field.

Here some of things most inspired me, I hope they could inspire you too, and give you energy to be the change you want to see in the world.

Archon Team

First of all thanks to guys that were with me in Paris: Davide Venturelli, the CEO, works at NASA and is currently in charge of surveying the scientific investigations performed at the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. What he does it’s incredible, and he motivated me a lot to follow my dreams now.

You can watch his pitch at the conference on Youtube (recorded by my Ubuntu Phone). Seriously, find 8 minutes today and watch it, so you can understand what Archon is about, and why I like it.

Giovanni Landi is our 3D expert, and has a lot of different passions. I had a lot of fun working with him at our stand, and I learned a lot of things about art (one of his passions).

Roberto Navoni is our hardware expert, and his life should be an inspiration for every Italian. He’s an entrepreneur, has created a company in Italy and despite the difficulties he didn’t expatriate.

Davide Ghezzi is our CFO. Unfortunately he was able to join us only for the first day, but he did a lot of things. I have no idea on how is possible a single man has so much energies, but wow!

The stand

I spent most of the time at our stand, where I explained what is our product to both potentially investors and casual visitors. As you can read, my English isn’t so good, so I was quite surprised everyone understood what I was saying.

Anyway, meet so many people from all around the world was amazing, everyone with incredible experiences and cool backgrounds. I spent a lot of time talking about the future, and how to do things that could impact the world. I listened to a lot of stories, and I remember each of them, because everyone was incredible.

The keynotes

During the event I was able to take a look to a couple of keynotes (I spent the rest of the time at the stand), and both were something you don’t see everyday.

The first one was by Obi Felten, moonshots at Google[X]. I don’t agree with a lot of Google’s policies, but the energies these guys have in trying to build something beautiful, and how they work hard with open minds is something that deserves deep respect and admiration.

The second one was by the CEO of G-Therapeutics. They have developed a working (but still in development) technology that helps paralyzed people walk again. Let me repeat: a stimulation system to rehabilitate individuals with spinal cord injury.

The presentation was the most moving thing I’ve ever seen, and it has earned minutes of applause.

The companies

Other than Archon, there were a lot of other interesting companies, both for what they do or for the stories of their founders.

I leave here a little list about the ones that I liked more, which it is far from complete (you can read the entire list on the Hello Tomorrow website).

• Blitab is a braille tablet helping blind people. I love howntechnologies nowadays could help less lucky people to live a better life
• BioCarbon Engineering is changing the world 1 billion trees at a time. They use drones to make precision planting and optimize reforestation. You know, trees don’t give free wifi, but they give oxigen, so they are useuful. Indeed, BioCarbon won the competition.
• Artomatix builds a software to automating the generation of art, to enable digital graphic artists to focus on being creative, in addition to reducing project times and costs. Ok, it’s not a world changer, but the gamer that is in me loves the software, so I really hope they could have success
• Solenica is building Lucy. Lucy’s mirror follows the sun and reflects sunlight into your rooms, creating a beautiful natural glow. Other than the product (they allow you to reduce your carbon footprint by up to 1 ton/year by saving electricity, I like things that help the ecology), I like the story of the startup, founded by 3 Italians. It’s sad they had to go to the U.S. to follow their dream, but I love their stubbornness in going forward. Only people as their go forward, and make the world a better place.

Conclusion

Other than the inspiration, in that week I had also the confirmation I’m on the right path to do something in my life to help the world to be a better place. A lot of people incited me to continue on that way, and you know, public recognition of your work is important.

Ciao,
R.