Statements by Bruno Lescoeur, CEO of Edison The manifesto of progress starts from fighting famines Corriere della Sera, 14 May 2015

Amartya Sen says "Expo should talk about hunger, rather than food", meaning that we should discuss economic policies, because the problem lies more in the access to resources rather than in their creation. According to Sen, the only way to access to resources is by "raising populations' incomes." The Indian-born 1998 Nobel Laureate and professor at Harvard University will be a guest speaker tomorrow at 10.30 am at Edison's Milan HQ in Foro Bonaparte 31 to discuss the topic of famines and food security in connection with sustainable growth. "This conference opens the Edison Open 4Expo series" says Bruno Lescoeur, CEO of the EDF-controlled utility company- "an initiative created by the Foundation with a view to creating a manifesto of innovation that we can pass on to this country at the end of Expo."   The idea is to produce a list of concrete proposals integrating academic theory with grassroot-level requests. Between tomorrow and the month of November, economists, opinion leaders, artists, researchers, makers and startuppers will engage in the debate about energy geopolitics, climate change, energy savings, and sustainable development. The guest list is off to a flying start with Amartya Sen, followed by Michael Landesmann, expert in East-West economic integration, set to speak on 8 June about "Internal and external imbalances in the European economy", and by Jackie Krafft from the French Centre national de la recherche scientifique, who will talk about "Growth and governance of businesses in a context of sustainable innovation."  Other key speakers will be Joel Mokyr from Chicago's Northwestern University  (14 September, "Is a technological revolution a thing of the past?"),  Paul Allan David from Standford University (23 September, "Political decisions on food and agriculture, and their consequences"), Bina Agarwal from Manchester University (1 October, "Environment and development, eco-economic issues"), and finally Fabiola Gianotti, Director-general of Geneva-based CERN (7 November, "Science and technology, a European and international perspective".)