Strong and Vital No 3

Viviana Kasam The Personality behind the Scenes 1st MILAN LONGEVITY SUMMIT 14-27 March 2024 Viviana Kasam worked for 30 years for the Italian leading newspaper Corriere della Sera , where she was the first journalist to cover internationally women’s condition, and Rai, Italy’s state broadcaster, and was among the founders of Canale5, wor king on the concept and participating in the start-up of Italy’s leading commercial channel. She organized institutional events for the Municipalities of Milan and Rome, for the President of the Italian Republic and the Prime minister’s office, as well as for theatres and festivals all over Italy. In 2008 she decided to give up profit activities and to devote herself full-time to non-profit initiatives, both in her field neuroscience and in music, specializing in works written in concentration camps, prisons and gulags, to promote through music a better mutual understanding and respect for religious, political and cul tural diversity. In 2010 she founded with Nobel prize laureate prof. Rita Levi Montalcini, and

presently chairs, the non-profit Associazione BrainCircleItalia www.braincircleitalia.it , created with the purpose of making the general public – and youth in particular – familiar with brain research, which is of fundamental importance for self-know ledge and for understanding and governing the future. In 2019, she founded BrainCircleLugano www.braincirclelugano.ch with a group of scientists and supporters in Ticino, based on the experience of BrainCircleItalia. BrainCircle has organized more than 100 events in Italy and abroad, in-presence and online, BrainForums, Brain&Cinema festivals, a series of lectures in theatres with the title “The Science and us”, and the exhibition “The Colour of Thought”, Brainbow photographs matched with modern art works, which was displayed in Milan and then travelled to Paris, Deauville, Lisbon. Since 2014 she has organized in Rome, at the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Institutional Concerts for the Holocaust Memorial Day, patronized by Prime Minister of Italy and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), in order to bring awareness to the music composed in concentration camps. All the concerts were broadcast live by Rai, the national Italian Television, and received great praise from the media and the public. The 2020 concert was dedicated to the theme of exile www.memoriainscena.it . Between 2020 and 2023 she organized the itinerant Brainforum Emotions, www.emotionsbrainforum.org which took place in nine cities in Europe and brought together the leading women neuroscientists from the most prestigious Universi ties and research Centers in the world, with the purpose of giving visibility to women researchers and promoting emotional intelligence, which is necessary to face the challenges of the new Millennium, for both men and women. In 2023-2024 she created and organized the Milan Longevity Summit (14-27 March, 2024), the most important conference to ever have taken place in the world on the subject of on Longevity and Healthy Aging, involving 60 among the most bril liant scientists in the field worldwide and Institutions and Foundations from the US and Europe. Longevity was discussed from the point of you of cutting edge research, but also in its socio-economic, political and ethical implications. Viviana has won many awards, both for her activity in the press, radio and television, and was honoured with the title “Cava liere della Repubblica Italiana” for her work. She was awarded in 2023 a Doctorate Honoris Causa from the Hebrew Univer sity of Jurusalem. She is President of the Lilah Foundation, Vice-President of the Fondazione Federica Spitzer in Lugano, to promote intercultural dialogue. From 2018 until 2023 She has been a member of the scientific committee of the Fondazione Prada and has been involved in the organization of HumanBrains, a series of international seminars with the most established scientific Institutions and neuroscientists around the world, and in the HumanBrains exhibition in Venice during the Biennale 2022. She has been sitting for ten years on the Board of Governors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. www.braincircleitalia.it , www.braincirclelugano.ch, www.emotionbrainforum.org , www.milanlongevitysummit.org About me «In my personal and work life I am motivated by ethical principles that I learned from my family: honesty, even if it is not convenient, commitment to others – not only economic, also in terms of time, love for culture and science, the drive for constant self-improvement. And the ambition to dream big, to aim for the moon, because there is always time to downsize one’s expectations, but if you aim downwards, you hit the ground. My main feature is curiosity, while the quality that I think is of utmost importance is discipline. However the most significant virtue is the ability to organization and teamwork, also in large-scale events. My personal and work commitment aims to improve the condition of women and minorities, spread brain and mind sciences, and emphasise their interaction with the body. My passions: my family, including pets, Jewish culture, and music.»

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STRONG and VITAL No. 3 - 2024

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