Diana Bracco｜Our Commitment to the Future
Date：2021-09-27
Source: China-Europe-America Wechat Official Account
(Click to Watch Video)
President of the Bracco Foundation, Diana Bracco's Speech
Thank you for the invitation to this wonderful initiative that brings together China, Europe and the United States. A warm welcome to all of the participants, especially our moderator, Louis Godart, whom I have known and esteemed for many years. It is encouraging that discussions can be held at the international level about how philanthropy can help to address the major health, environmental, social and cultural challenges of our time.
I know well the attention that our Chinese friends give to this matter, also because for several years I had the honor of serving as Vice President of the Italy-China Foundation. I believe in the importance of building bridges between diverse cultures in this period when complexity and opportunity often go hand in hand. Indeed, there is no government or company, no university, non-profit organization or foundation that can solve the world’s problems alone.
The health crisis caused by the pandemic has showed us how quickly the entire world can be shaken. It is therefore our duty today to work together to find the financial, organizational, and managerial resources to face the great challenges we have before us.One important example is the “Global Partnership for Sustainable Development”. The Sustainable Development Goals, which have replaced the previous Millennium Development Goals, identify the involvement of the private sector as a crucial element, focusing on collaboration between "for profit" and "non-profit".
Philanthropy has always been part of the Bracco family’s DNA. As early as post World War II, my father, Fulvio Bracco, created some scholarships named after his mother, “Nina Salata”, which may be considered the precursors to our initiatives for the youth.
In the following years, our Group introduced company policies focused on taking care of people, protecting the environment, practicing sustainability, and supporting culture and equal opportunities.
Looking back on our cultural projects from recent years, there have been many rewarding moments: from bringing Canaletto to the National Gallery in Washington, where I also had the honor of serving on the Board of Trustees, to contributing to the La Scala Philharmonic performance at Expo 2010 Shanghai; from the consistent focus on gender issues to the constant attention and concrete improvements in the urban outskirts.
But perhaps the greatest satisfaction was having been chosen by the President of the Republic as the main private partner for the restoration of the Pope Chigi Gallery in the Quirinal Palace to mark the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification. In order to better structure our activities, in 2010, together with my sister, Gemma, and with the support of many friends, we launched the Bracco Foundation. Many of our foundation’s initiatives in these first ten years have produced positive and concrete results, whose social impacts have been measured by specific tools.
Furthermore, we have provided technical and scientific support to many of these projects; diagnostic imaging, the sector in which Bracco is a world leader, is a technique that helps reveal many hidden “secrets” in works of art such as paintings and musical instruments, and it seemed natural to us to offer our expertise in this field to curators and restorers.
The three main areas we deal with, combining knowledge, disciplines and opportunity, are art, science, and social projects. We always pay particular attention to women’s issues and the youth, to whom we have dedicated “Diventerò”, a multi-year training and work experience initiative that has already provided over one thousand graduate awards, scholarships, and doctoral research grants to date.
Particularly significant among these is the award in memory of Professor Ernst Felder, the prominent scientist and long-time head of Bracco Research whose discoveries revolutionized diagnostic imaging. The one-million-dollar award aimed to bring a young, talented researcher back to Italy to help launch a project on green chemistry research in collaboration with the Polytechnic of Milan Foundation. Similarly, we have helped support the future of young artists through our long-standing partnership with the La Scala Academy. And we will bring the Academy’s Orchestra to Expo 2020 Dubai for a grand performance to celebrate Italian National Day on November 24th.
