"When we talk about digitization," explains Luigi Nicolais, President, Campania Digital Innovation Hub, "we have to consider that the first two major industrial revolutions were born in 1784 and ended in 1970. That is, they ended in a period of about 200 years, unlike the third and fourth over the course of fifty years. The way of accelerating changes in Enterprise and Industry has changed substantially, not only in Industry, but also in society.
Today we confuse the third industrial revolution with the fourth, because we still talk a lot about digitization. Digitization must be a prerequisite to make the fourth industrial revolution, we cannot imagine that we are still digitizing!
The third Industrial Revolution wanted to make real things virtual, to eliminate paper and turn it into data. The fourth revolution is totally different, it wants to use data to create something material, so we go back from the third that dematerialized, to the fourth that materializes, that is using these advanced computer systems to change the way we produce, the way we live.
One of the points that I found very complex during my work in the Minister for Reforms and Innovation in Public Administration," Luigi Nicolais continued, "was that there was no ability to make two different information systems interact, for example, between Municipality X, neighboring Municipality Y. Even my ministry had to use attachments to pass data to another ministry. The computer was seen as an innovative typewriter, not as a true data information sharing system, this fortunately must still be a strong element!
Next to what has been the strong cooperation between University and Enterprise, the big Enterprise and the small Enterprise, we have a great opportunity, a great amount of knowledge in the big Enterprise. Why doesn't the large Enterprise spend some time to transfer this know-how to the small Enterprise which is a potential sub-supplier, for a technological upgrade that can then improve the whole fabric?
With the Campania Digital Innovation Hub project, we have brought together companies in the Campania region that have agreed to give access to what are 4.0 technologies, to accelerate this project that I would call not so much training, but information and play, to work and try what is technological innovation!"