The inauguration of the Sony Computer Science Laboratories’ (Sony CSL) new branch in Italy took place in Rome on Thursday 16th June in the prestigious Enrico Fermi Research Center, located in the historic building of “I Ragazzi di Via Panisperna”. The event has been a great success, welcoming a considerable number of guests who could enjoy the atmosphere of attending the event in presence, after a long time of online meetings.

In addition to Sony and Sony CSL management, the event has also been attended by different exponents of local and national institutions and representatives from entrepreneurship and innovation. After the welcome by Hiroaki Kitano (President and CEO of Sony CSL, CTO Sony Corp ) and Hideyuki Furumi (President Sony Europe BV), Vittorio Loreto (Director Sony CSL Paris & Rome) provided a brief scientific introduction on the laboratory’s research activities and then it was the turn for the many speakers to take the floor for a contribution to the debate.

The addresses of Luciano Pietronero (President CREF), Tsukasa Hirota (Deputy Head of Mission Japanese Embassy in Italy), Lorenzo Fioramonti (Member of the Italian Parliament), Monica Lucarelli (Rome Municipality Councilor for the Productive Activities and Equal Opportunities), Lorenzo Tagliavanti (President Chamber of Commerce of Rome), Ralph Dumm (European Commission, DG Connect and Head officer of STARTS programme) and Paolo Orneli (Lazio Region Councilor for the Economic Development, Commerce and handicraft, Research Startup and Innovation) followed each other within the lively first session of the event.

Then the debate moved towards a more detailed presentation of the new laboratory’s three main research lines through the short dialogues between Bernardo Monechi (Sony CSL) and Luca Montuori (Roma 3 University) for the “Sustainable Cities“, Pietro Gravino (Sony CSL) and Marco Delmastro (CREF) for the “Infosphere” and Alessandro Londei (Sony CSL) and Olga Kisseleva (Sorbonne University) for the “Augmented Creativity”.

The second session was masterfully concluded by the three addresses of Maria Chiara Carrozza (President of CNR), Maria Sabrina Sarto (Deputy Rector for the Research, Sapienza University of Rome) and Daniela Vuri (Deputy Rector for the Research, Tor Vergata University).

Finally Vittorio Loreto and Barbara Gasperini (Moderator) took the floor to address their warmest thank you to all the guests and to all the people involved in the event organization, inviting everyone to visit the Museum dedicated to Enrico Fermi, located inside the homonymous center and to take a tour of the exhibition of artworks created by the artist and illustrator Fernando Cobelo at Sony CSL premises.

The final cocktail party was such a great moment for networking and to keep enjoying the experience of exchanging knowledge!

More about this event

After opening the historic offices in Tokyo and Paris and the more recent Kyoto, Sony CSL landed in Rome with a new laboratory dedicated to research in information, sustainability and artificial intelligence. The new laboratory was born thanks to a scientific agreement with the Enrico Fermi Research Center and it represents an example of a unique public-private effort for joint research.

More about the Sony Computer Science Laboratories

Sony CSL is a leading-edge laboratory dedicated to research that contributes to the common social good. The extreme flexibility and multidisciplinarity of the approach, adopted in the four offices of Tokyo, Kyoto, Paris and Rome, allows it to face the most diverse research areas, combining science, technological innovation, art and the public good in a single conceptual space.  The specific themes range from music to language, from the future of cities to sustainable agriculture, from creative processes to humanity’s great challenges.

Press and media

• La Repubblica
• E-duesse
• Dday
• Impresacity
• CorCom
• TechPrincess
• RomaDailyNews
• Macitynet
• 01net
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