Set the sails right?

21 June 2022 | 18:00 - 18:30 CEST | SISSA Main Auditorium | |
Consolidated programme 2022 overview / Day 1

Keynote by:

Alessandro Mulas, Vice presidente società velica di Barcola e Grignano – organizzatore Barcolana (15')

Video record

Transcript

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>> NADIA TJAHJA: At this moment in time, I would like to invite Alessandro Mulas, Vice President – I apologize for my Italian.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to the podium and, please, do go ahead. Thank you very much.

>> ALESSANDRO MULAS: Thank you very much, everybody.

I’m very honored to be here. I’m an old engineer. I graduated at the University of Trieste with a Master’s, those day, they’re very far ago. The professors, others, they were glories for our University, for our scientific institution, for our town. I came here sometimes as an audience, as attending, but actually, the first time to address the speech, and really it is touching on a personal basis.

In my 50 minute speech, I will talk about nothing actually scientific but just a joint between a wonderful sporting event and Internet and web and how web and all of the Internet and digitalization affected a sporting event which in turn is effecting the life of my town. Also I’m surprised that the picture of the EuroDIG was actually the picture of the starting line of Barcolana.

Here I am.

Which one do I have to push? Thank you. Great.

Thank you very much for inviting Barcolana to address a speech in this illustrious of an audience. Thank you very much for signaling Barcolana as a very distinctive, very popular event. Thank you for pointing it at Barcolana it is in the invention and the use of the Internet. So in my speech, in the first half, I will show you what is Barcolana through some pictures and after looking at these slides I will talk about the influence of the Internet on Barcolana itself.

Of course, it is enough I suppose from this picture to say breathtaking or awesome. Not only will I say for the audience, for the participants in the event was really very, very terrible for the public authorities and for everybody, it was a terrific event, people native, living in Trieste I imagine can talk to you.

So you can see, that’s the moment of the starting, you know, on top, on the left top, there is a cloud. It is the biggest event which gathered the top performing boats. You can find the picture on the laptop, the first maxi, the 7, the 8 already started and pointing at the next mark. Those are the others, there are plenty of boats following.

Some figures to confine, to give a brief idea both in terms of sport but also in terms of collateral event, actually it is a matter of economy for the town and a matter of an overwhelming number of people coming, more than doubling the population of Trieste for one week, of course, with the climate in the weekend, on the second Sunday of each October.

2689 is the number, top number awarded by the Guinness in 2019 and as you can imagine, it is 2600 boats on sea – I have to do exact.

We have roughly 16,000 sailors, but even 300,000 people all around the wonderful theater of Trieste on the embankment, on the hills, the other wonderful points from which it is wonderful to have a panorama and a view.

Chi points of this event started in 1969 as a very small, you know, neglected regatta of the at the end of the season. After ten years we had the first important participant. Again, in the ’90s, the biggest boats coming from a big race around the world earning in 2000, with he get one of the first records in the number 1700, and a decade after decade, we had an evolution until 2018 which as I told you, the record, and now we had two events in 2020, 2021 during the pandemic which was a mix of courage and cleverness in order to be able to organize the event notwithstanding the health situation.

In a nutshell, the secret of this regatta, it is together all kinds of boats coming from the most technical performing and well-known and also with amateur, families, daily sailors, in a magic starting that’s very, very complicated for the organizer, and also the new final, in the last three, four years, that’s a wonderful panorama in front there with the arrival just in front of roughly between 10,000 and 15,000 people standing up all around the peer and embankments.

I mention before plenty of overwhelming events, not only at sea, but also on the of ground because for all that we can, we have in the weekend, we have the main regattas and during the week we have some water sport and also we have several sea culture presents, presentations, conferences, music events in the theater of the city, shops, so on. It is not only – it is not only a regatta but like a fair, like a city festival trying to be interesting, attractive, interesting for a lot of people.

That is a picture of the embankment on the left top of the picture, there is an opening there, we have the two pillars and the trans. You can imagine massive people, it is really massive, with a lot of boats moored on the embankments and people walking around. Everything is closed, it is a large pedestrian area and really it is – and also we are proud to highlight that it is a sample of do culture against the do not culture that you probably heard in the grapevine, to not support is not possible in the Trieste dialect. It is a good example that if a group putting together public and private actors and producing a giant event for 360 days, for 300 days per year, it is possible to create also in this city and it is an event that’s really terrific.

Some figures, regarding the web, regarding Internet, actually Barcolana invested in the Internet well in advance to the pandemic, it is well-known, the acceleration that the digital evolution had.

So Barcolana, not the first, but one of the first Italian websites focused on sailing, it was several years before the pandemic and years after years we arrived at the present figures, actually these projected are the figures of last year’s, more than 1 million views on social media, through the international conference, through around Italy, it was around Italy, according to taking place during the week of Barcolana, we had more than 60,000, roughly 60,000 views.

All of the other figures, they’re quite impressive, in particularly 3 million in Instagram in a few days, 81 Instagram posts created in a very small period.

I don’t know if I’m out of time or I’m long.

I can finish my speech afterwards.

The role of the digitalization was so evidence in the organization of Barcolana that during the pandemic we worked quite well organizing and well trained in order to explore all of the digitalization tools allowed to organize Barcolana even during the pandemic. In particular, 2020 we arrive in a couple of weeks everything in Italy, it was stopped. Thinking about it, keeping that kind of event with lockdown, the restriction, any kind, it was really an act of brave people to imagine something like this.

Web digital technologies allowed to take place, without digitalization maybe it would not have been, without online application, without online communication during the event, without the follow on of mooring, the booking of mooring, without mentioning all the other commercial advising and information we had on the website related directly related to Barcolana, Barcolana invested a lot on the Internet.

I said well before the pandemic, on website, digitalization, it was really essential, proved to be essential and necessary and a good example of I could say if it is possible to explore day by day all of the digitalization revolution in a funnel in order to put in place the technologies that can then offer, it is a long time actually. The application, put in place, put in practice, actually was an acceleration for our life. We started, we had the view, we had the luck to start well in advance.

Thank you very much. My complement for the event. Thank you very much for having given me the opportunity to justify also the choice of the pictures in the cover of the EuroDIG.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Many thanks to you to come and show us the kind of beauty of the beautiful host city that we’re in and the connection that we can have with each other across the different sectors, the different cultures and bringing together people, bringing together everybody.

>> ALESSANDRO MULAS: Together crazy people in a crazy town which drinks coffee in 34 different ways, and capable to create wonderful things and especially for our self.

Thank you very much.

>> NADIA TJAHJA: Thank you very much.

Certainly, this is what we aim to achieve, to create and design things together. With this, I would like to close for the end of this day. I hope to see you at the social evening. It will be a wonderful time with beautiful performance, they’ll be incredible local cuisine that we can enjoy, but also it will be an adventure to find this one door in the middle of nowhere where you can walk through the railway to get to this beautiful view! I look forward to go on this journey with you.

With this, this is the end of Day 1. Thank you all so much. I hope to see you also tomorrow.

Good evening.

Set the sails right? – Keynote 04 2022