Six podcasts are coming that tell the precursors of information technology in Italy

A cross-media project is born, called Pioneers of IT – Men and women at the dawn of the digital revolution, aimed at telling the precursors of Italian IT through six podcasts.

Italian computer science of the 1950s told through the podcasts of 2022

In the 1950s, Italy was a country to be rebuilt, in the midst of the economic boom. A country that wanted to leave the rubble of war behind and look to the future. Starting over, yes, but with different eyes. Precisely in this historical context, difficult but optimistic, IT was born in Italy. And it was born thanks to men and women who started what we call today digital revolution.

Stories so interesting that they will become a podcast. Indeed they will become six, thanks to an interesting cross-media project called IT Pioneers – Men and women at the dawn of the digital revolution. The initiative was born thanks to the University of Pisa, the Museum of Calculation Tools and the University Museum System.

“Pisa, thanks to its cosmopolitan spirit and its innate ability to know how to dream big and to know how to prepare for change” – he says Paolo Mancarella, Rector of the University of Pisa. “The city has managed to be one of the epicenters of this epochal revolution. A history of precursors, made possible also because the University of Pisa has fully carried out its function within a system that constitutes one of the largest concentrations of knowledge and scientific quality recorded in Italy. Being able to retrace it through the voice and the story of its protagonists is an important occasion of inspiration for all those who are called to write the future of information technology “.

The podcasts will be published on the major streaming platforms and will each tell the life of an Italian IT pioneer. In particular, the episodes will be dedicated to Giuseppe Cecchini, Elio Fabri, Franco Filippazzi, Elisa Montessori, Luigi Pistelli and Roberto Vacca. We will listen to their voices on a journey made of rudimentary instruments, which however will lead to the creation of the Electronic Calculator Pisana andElea 9003, as well as installing the Ferranti Mark 1 at the Inac of Rome.

The project was curated by the director Lorenzo Garzella, Fabio Gadducci (museum director), Maurizio Gazzarri ed Elizabeth Mori (computer history experts). Listening is of course free on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and Google podcasts.