Luiss students Carlo Ardito and Biagio Di Benedetto are the organizers of the next TEDxLuiss, entitled Upside Down, taking place on March 23 at the University’s headquarters on Viale Pola.
Carlo, in his third year of the bachelor’s program in Economics and Business, is the lead organizer, while Biagio, in his first year of the master’s program in Management, is co-lead organizer.
"We met a couple of years ago and TEDx was one of the first topics we discussed, I have always been enthusiastic about the format," says Carlo.
In November 2017, the two got the idea to bring TEDx back to Luiss, as it had been done in 2015 and 2016: "We sent a request to the Vancouver headquarters to obtain a license to host the event and after a few months of waiting, the confirmation arrived in July 2018.”
The name Upside Down was inspired by the television series Stranger Things, where the Upside Down is a place where you look at things from a different point of view: "We took this concept and we interpreted it as a new way to approach problems, with a different spirit and always looking for interesting solutions, thinking upside down.” This is, therefore, the task of the event’s speakers, to convey their idea of Upside Down to the audience.
The duo started organizing the event in September 2018. Carlo and Biagio presented the project to the University: "We have created a team of over thirty people, we are like a small company working to organize something extraordinary for students.”
The whole team underlines "the importance of the constant and decisive help of all the University’s offices: the infrastructure, the logistic support and the network we have access to have been fundamental to our work.”
The event is quite out of the ordinary for both of the students. Says Biagio, “ I have been living in a state of disbelief for months. So many things are happening so quickly that for me now it just seems normal. We just keep working towards March 23 and we are trying to believe that everything is really starting to take shape.”
For Carlo the best part or the whole project is the final countdown to the event: “Having the chance to spend all these months with the others and share my time with them has been priceless. March 23 will pass in the blink of an eye but I will never forget the experience or the people.”