A message from Deputy Commissioner Caratti

With the arrival of schools, the EU pavilion is getting more and more visitors. The kids love the cartoon story of Alex and Sylvia and are excited by the special effects, in particular the water dripping on their heads and the scent of freshly baked bread. The film already won the July award for Best Animated Short Film at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival and received an Official Selection from the San Diego International Kids' Film Festival.

Several high level events took place in the pavilion on subjects relevant to the future of agriculture, including the Rise Foundation's conference on sustainable intensification, aiming at producing more crops with less pollution. The EU pavilion also hosted the 2015 edition of the BCFN conference with the participation of 100 young researchers from all over the world presenting new ideas and projects contributing to solving the challenge of feeding the planet, and handing to the EU and US representatives a manifesto for youth. A B2B event organised by the European Commission with Promos for Sub-Saharan Africa drew a large number of participants and led to over 600 brokerage meetings between EU and African business operators. The European Space Expo, a moveable dome structure of 20m diameter and 10m height was installed in the Giardini Montanelli, next to Porta Venezia in Milan centre, with a view to educating youngsters about space technologies, in particular about the features of the Galileo, Copernicus and Egnos programmes. The Pavilion hosted the 2015 edition of the EU contest for young scientists, to promote the ideals of collaboration and interchange among young scientists. 170 kids from all over Europe came to Expo Milan and 30 of them received a prize. As representative of EU pavilion, I handed four prizes for the new category of food, whom were selected by the Steering Committee for the EU Scientific Programme chaired by Franz Fischler.