Translator: TEDx Milano Translators Reviewer: Michele Gianella
Imagine you are in a village that is only accessible
by a steep and winding road.
Imagine being in this village which has a single bell tower.
It is isolated, there are 750 inhabitants.
Where you can smell the meadows, hear the rustle of the trees
and you can live a peaceful and undisturbed life.
My family is from there.
We live in the same house since 1400, like many other families from Esino.
This is where the story takes place.
One day, my cousin Lolanda Pensa, also from the village,
an active Wikipedia contributor,
contacted me to say:
Pietro, let's organize the World Wikipedia Convention in Esino.
I was silent for moment - Sorry, what are you talking about?
It's the convention they hold every year
in different cities around the world
where all Wikipedians meet and talk
Where did they meet so far?
In London, Hong Kong, Washington
And now ... we're going to have it ... in Esino?
(Laughter)
Sure!
A crazy idea: I'm up for it, I'm on the team.
Tell me what I have to do.
Of course, I have to tell you some facts.
I work as a freelancer, I do projects, I work in construction.
I'm a builder.
And so I do what I can do, and I start working.
The concept was to plan low-cost projects
because in our application
we wanted to show that it could be held anywhere,
a big conference, at a very low cost.
So I had to used my engineering skills
to find the best solutions
to restructure our existing assets.
And so I did.
I drew up plans for a dozen projects
and sent them to the municipal administration.
The municipal administration approved them
and filed them away in the archive.
They put them in the archive
because what was missing, in 2013, when I delivered them,
was the will to do anything.
This will was missing,
and that turned into complete political apathy
no will to have new ideas or improve their village.
So much so that in 2014 something very serious happened:
nobody in the village
wanted to work in the administration.
The village had become ungoverned.
"Paese commissariato" is a phrase you hear on TV
when they are talking about the mafia, when there are criminals on the loose.
No, if was just that people didn't want to show up.
Basically a lifeless village.
In the meantime, however, the candidacy went ahead.
Lolanda was working hard,
because basically we had to put together a plan
that would get the congress delegates from the other side of the world
to Esino Lario
by trains, by bus, on planes.
My wife would be at the airport, collecting them,
getting them all together, and loading them onto a bus
which would take them to Esino where they would be accommodated.
This plan had to be presented in America.
Slowly the selections took place
and after Italy, Europe, we finally ended up in America.
In America, at the Wikipedia Foundation, they asked, "But does Esino really exist?"
And they came to the village.
They came to find out if we actually existed.
They noticed we were there, real flesh and bone people,
and we were working on the project.
But then there was a problem.
We had a prefectural commissioner who could only handle ordinary stuff.
The projects I had presented
were all obviously out of the ordinary investment projects.
They were not expensive, but someone had to finance them.
At that point, what came to mind?
We made a list of 30, 31 items.
Our civic list.
Stella Alpina, obviously, because we are in the mountains
1,000 meters above Lake Como at the foot of the Grigna, 2,400 meters.
I seriously suggest you visit them both.
We make this list, I chose the short straw
and suddenly found myself mayor.
(Laughter)
You may laugh.
(Applause)
But I had never even taken part
in a city council, in my whole life
because it would cause me a rash.
Imagine me being mayor.
Well, the fact is, the situation was quite worrying.
Nando Della Chiesa wrote an article on good news from Italy
and compared me to a modern day Asterix
who, in his Gallic village, took on endless challenges.
Yes, but if you know Asterix, you'll know he had a magic potion.
I had no magic potion.
But I was not alone.
I was not alone because people began to turn up of their own volition.
And all the associations -
in Esino there are 15 voluntary associations.
It seems impossible, in a village of 750 residents!
15 voluntary associations is lot.
And the desire to do this thing grew.
We put our heads together
and finished all the projects we had to finish, and even more.
Because local businesses had got on board
they drew up a lot of small contracts
to assign everyone, in turn, with a task to do.
So much so, that every business tried to out do the others
and above all because:
First, we were working for our village; and second. we had to finish on time.
We had so much to do.
And just a year to do it.
And a year later - actually less, as we finished a month early,
we had finished everything.
Everything was ready and they were coming.
All the delegates started arriving in the village.
It wasn't easy to accommodate them
because in a village of 750 inhabitants,
there were not enough beds for all of them.
The locals had opened up their homes.
In the plan, actually,
someone who was, let's say, from New Zealand
already knew that they were staying in Carlo Nasazzi's house
or Giuseppe Barindelli's.
And this is what happened:
he arrived by bus,
Carlo Nasazzi came, picked up the suitcases
and took them to his house, happy ever after.
(Applause)
Thank you.
The week unfolded in an extraordinary way.
There was a new crazy atmosphere in the village.
(Laughs)
I mean, an international atmosphere
that you could breath in everywhere.
One day, I was behind two old women who thought they were alone.
I heard them chatting
and I heard them say, in the local dialect:
"Let's speak in dialect, so they think we are foreigners too."
(Laughter)
So, everyone just wanted to take part.
It was really wonderful, extraordinary.
In the end, the numbers were really impressive.
We had 1,300 delegates with friends, relatives, family
plus journalists,
plus the former villagers who said:
"Let's go and see what's going on in Esino".
So, it was a real success,
more we could ever have imagined.
All the TV news came, the newspapers.
In short, it was an extraordinary event.
When it was all over, nobody wanted to leave.
We had to just get rid of some of them
because we couldn't cope with them any longer.
Finally, the Congress finished.
And we were left to wonder, what will the legacy of Wikimania be?
What did we get out of it?
Yes, it left us with infrastructure
because we actually built a lot of things.
A cinema,
which was reduced to rubble for the garbage truck,
we had a boarded up museum that opened and is still open today.
Many, many other things.
Everything was put in order.
After the event, we just kept going,
because now we had momentum.
We set up wood-fired district heating, LED lights.
All those things that a village needs
to make it a little more ecologically friendly.
And they work for us.
Then,
there are the, let's call them material things
from our transformation
and therefore the legacy of this event, of this extraordinary happening.
Something that lasted a week and then finished.
What should remain is a change in people's attitude.
Finally, I also realised
that the magic potion, mentioned in Nando's article,
I actually did have it.
It was right in my hand.
It was participation.
The participation of everyone in the village.
They got involved in this event
and they continued to trust in it and wanted to do it
because they had become aware
that they could achieve something extraordinary
that could not be measured, as they had mentioned.
And it has led them to grow
and go from a feeling
of political euthanasia
to a desire to do things and to take part
and being active participants in their own future.
And so, in my little village
I can tell you what worked and what can be replicated
as a method to be applied to get things done,
even on a very limited budget,
or, hopefully, in politics, if someone will actually consider it.
The imagination, brilliance and the visionary idea
of my cousin Iolanda who said:
"Let's hold a world conference in Esino Lario".
Crazy. But Fine.
It's an idea, but then it took a lot of will power
the will power to work on it every day
and laser focus on the goal until you got the result you wanted.
Participation, because the will of a single visionary is not enough
and anyone who has to follow it, even if the idea is crazy,
to really achieve something.
We needed to involve more and more people.
The planning was very important.
Because you have to produce real and achievable projects.
Our projects all had limited budgets
and could be carried out with the limited business and human resources we had.
And then the magic potion: participation.
Being able to make sure that everyone
could take part , and benefit
from what they are doing.
But it's a personal benefit, not a financial one.
Because those who rented the rooms, didn't really rent them.
There was a grant of 20 euros per room
for cleaning and things like that.
They haven't even gone to collect it,
as it was a pleasure to host people in their home.
People took English classes throughout the year
even the old women who spoke dialect.
Lots of funny thing happened, but that'll be the topic for another time.
And they welcomed them.
So these things,
including the magic potion and participation,
they can be replicated, they are possible.
And what has changed in Esino?
Nothing. It's still a village ...
the most beautiful in the world, obviously, because it's mine,
in the middle of a valley, that is accessible only by a narrow road.
At the foot of the Grigna, above Lake Como.
The village hasn't has changed, but the people have changed.
People have changed.
Go to Esino and see there is a will to get things done, to do it again.
A desire to get involved, which had disappeared.
That is the best thing.
And what can I tell you?
I'm an engineer, so I have to give you some numbers.
The numbers for this change,
for this trust, this desire to get things done.
In 2017,
births in the village tripled.
It wasn't Wikipedians.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
In 2018 -
everyone thought there would be no more births in 2018.
Wrong.
In 2018, we recorded
double the birth rate of the previous 10 years.
Need I say more?
Thank you.
(Applause)