An Interview with Giovanni E. Corazza and William Webb

On October 25, the Marconi Society is proud to host our inaugural Executive Forum in Bologna, Italy. The forum aims to foster critical reflections and forward-looking discussions about the industry’s future. Executives from industry and experts from academia will delve into emerging challenges such as equitable connectivity, innovative commercial models, and the impact of frontier technologies.

One of our esteemed panels will focus on Looking to the Future: Creating a More Prosperous World with Broadband for All. We are honored to have Professor Giovanni E. Corazza, Founder of the Marconi Institute for Creativity, and William Webb, Author, Consultant, and Former CTO, Access Partnership, moderating this panel.

Giovanni and William share a few thoughts with us in advance of this important panel.

Our Executive Forum is called “Connected Lives: What Would Marconi Think.” In your opinion, what would Marconi, as an innovator and entrepreneur, think about our world today?

Giovanni: Simplifying, Marconi’s life could be divided into three parts: development, excitement, and sadness.

As a teenager, he had a peculiarly strong vision of himself as a future inventor. A sort of premonition that would lead him to pursue his educational development through a personalized private program, very much focused on the rising field of electromagnetism. At the age of 21 his dream became a reality in the park of Villa Griffone, in the outskirts of Bologna, where he gave origin to the world of wireless communications, as testified by an IEEE milestone.

Great entrepreneurial excitement quickly followed, bringing him to London for patenting, rounding up capital, and starting the Marconi Company at age 23. For about 25 years, Marconi kept on fighting with great strength to build a multinational reality for global communications.

Strangely enough, the advent of broadcasting in the 1920’s not only marked the start of significant commercial success for his company, but also the beginning of the sadder part of his life due to the rise in Europe of aggressive regimes that would lead to the second world war, which Marconi did not live to see. The idea that his invention could be used for harmful purposes was hardly acceptable to him.

In conclusion, my guess is that Marconi would look at today’s global situation with a mix of excitement for the undeniably powerful technological advances we are witnessing, as well as sadness for the apparently endless stream of raging wars, exploiting ever more technically sophisticated weapons. Once more, it is worthwhile repeating one of Marconi’s quotes: “My invention is for the benefit of humanity, not for its destruction.”

William: It is tempting to say that he’d be amazed at what we have achieved, how a small cellphone can access the world’s information, how satellites cover the globe and more. But given the ferocious pace of innovation in the early 20th century and given that 100 years have gone by since, I suspect the opposite, that he would be surprised at how little we have achieved – as books like 1984 and 2001 suggest, we assume faster change than actually occurs.

I suspect he’d be surprised that we had not solved the problem of being always-connected, and that there is a digital divide both within and across nations. But he might be pleasantly surprised at all of the various functions we have managed to cram into a handset. He might also be a little disappointed that much of the use is frivolous rather than necessary.
He would, I expect, be rightly proud that his inventions have led to a use of wireless that is completely indispensable in our world today.

Can you share a breakthrough idea or two that could radically change our ability to create a more prosperous world with broadband for all?

Giovanni: We need to break away from the short-term vision of society imposed by the prevalence of immediate financial returns over the long-term strategic valence of widespread sustainable infrastructures. This sharp turn requires a systemic approach to decision making that involves political, social, industrial, environmental, and regulatory dimensions. If any of these dimensions is left behind, the result is bound to produce even more inequality across the globe, and even within single nations.

A broadband infrastructure with truly global coverage requires large investments that will never be justified by their immediate returns, except for the well-known densely populated and highly developed regions. Forming this vision requires a call for the spread of futures literacy and the adoption of strategic foresight methodologies for the higher good, at all levels in society.

William: For delivering coverage in areas where there currently is none, I believe that “high altitude platforms” have an important role to play. While concepts such as base stations on balloons have a history of failure, much as been learnt and new materials and ideas are leading to concepts such as tethered aerostats that promise to deliver rural coverage at about 1/100th of the cost of conventional towers as well as avoiding the myriad problems of building and maintaining towers in remote areas.
Another important concept is using all available networks – all cellular networks, Wi-Fi, satellite and high-altitude platforms. Bringing together all our resources in a seamless and optimised manner could quickly deliver much better connectivity without needing much investment.

What do you hope we achieve together with this panel?

Giovanni: I wish the panel will mark the start of a long term conversation among international experts, forming the inception of an open community that, through dialogue and the exchange of positions that might not even be immediately reconcilable, will be able to produce valuable support to decision makers in critical arenas around the globe.

William: This panel comprises some of the world’s leading thinkers and top executives in the communications world. By giving them a chance to briefly step back from their busy daily roles and think more broadly and further into the future than normal, then seeds may be planted which could germinate into new technologies, services and standards.
If the panel could become the first of many forums where global challenges were discussed and promising ideas taken away for development and implementation, then that would be a huge step forwards.

This month’s Executive Forum is the first in a series that will span topics and regions around the world. To learn more about the Marconi Society’s Executive Forum and other programs, please subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

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