Testimonials

Manuela Aguzzi

Manuela Aguzzi, PhD in Industrial Design and Multimedia Communication, participated in the 2015 diploma awarding ceremony with the following speech

Dijon De Moraes

Dijon De Moraes, PhD graduate in Industrial Design from the Politecnico di Milano, is now rector at Minas Gerais Federal University (UEMG) in Brazil. He made a speech at the 2013 graduation ceremony, and you can view a video of his testimonial at: http://www.uemg.br/noticia_detalhe.php?id=4922 

Fabio Violante

Establishing an innovative business following a PhD: the Neptuny experience

"In a world in which everyone develops applications or creates new systems, I set out to optimise existing systems, and to make them work better, because there is plenty of room for improvement in the existing infrastructure. My experience in the field of performance evaluation, capacity management and cloud computing started out from this intuition, which was destined to become an axiom.

I was born in Reggio Calabria, and in 1972 I moved to Milan to obtain, first a degree, and subsequently a PhD in Computer Engineering. I then worked for two years with Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), before dedicating myself heart and soul to my intuition. In 2000, through the aid of the Politecnico Business Accelerator and the help of two future partners (both professors at the university), I established Neptuny, a vertical company specialising in performance evaluation for large data centres, and designed to attract the attention of giants such as Fastweb, Vodafone and Expedia. An exponential growth in employees (from 1 to 90 in just a few years) and the opening of branches in London and California confirmed Neptuny's success, right up to the 2010 acquisition by the BMC group.

Today I serve as Chief Technical Officer EMEA at BMC Software, the eighth software company in the world, listed on NASDAQ."

Fabio Violante, PhD graduate in Computer Engineering

Alessio Tizzanini

Executive PhD, ENEL, 2013

"As a company representative for a major research project and, at the same time, as an Executive PhD student, I had the privilege of developing this activity by working simultaneously on the two fronts that represent the foundation and the future of research itself: the corporate and the university fronts. At the end of this experience, I gained significantly in terms of specific technical knowledge and understanding of the collaboration dynamics between the corporate world and academia (including strengths and areas for improvement), as well as the similarities and differences in their respective approaches to research.

For me, all this, combined with the excellent results achieved by the project and the personal and professional relationships that I was able to establish, was a significant and stimulating source of personal satisfaction.

The need to work at the same time in two different (yet largely overlapping) contexts required focused and continued commitment. However, in my opinion it was well worth while. Indeed, if we consider that research is moving fast towards an ever closer interaction between academia and industry, it is clear that initiatives such as the Executive PhD allow the researcher to develop and assimilate a particularly effective approach to research geared towards application."

Alessio Tizzanini, PhD in Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology 

Testimonials on the work of Alessio Tizzanini:

"I have no qualms in defining Alessio Tizzanini's "Executive" PhD experience a complete success: in just three years (not the four originally planned), Alessio put together an excellent thesis, which describes a major project - resulting from a collaboration agreement (signed before the PhD had been envisaged) between ENEL, Turboden my department - in all its stages (from conception of the prototype, to preparation of a test circuit, execution of tests and analysis of results). The project involved an organic supercritical fluid engine, for geothermal applications. Truth be told, several circumstances contributed to this result: (i) the undoubted talents of the student, (ii) the existing collaboration between ENEL and the Department of Energy, (iii) the common interest towards an undertaking of great prestige, and - last but not least - (iv) ENEL's significant investments in the project.   It is to be hoped that similar opportunities will arise again, either with ENEL or with other companies."

Prof. Ennio Macchi, Supervisor, Department of Energy

"The project in which Tizzanini was involved, concerning the development of high-efficiency ORC cycles for low-enthalpy geothermal applications, is certainly one of the most complex and interesting research projects promoted by ENEL in recent years. In light of the highly innovative character of the project in question and the quality of the resource involved, Enel Research decided to offer Tizzanini the possibility to take part in an Executive PhD at the Politecnico di Milano, a renowned university centre with which we already had an ongoing collaboration agreement for the research topic in question. The scope was manifold: to promote greater interaction between academia and industry; to offer the company an opportunity to train and professionally develop the resource involved; and to allow him to obtain a qualification in a theme of ongoing interest for the company. All of this combined, gave Tizzanini the tools required to make a decisive contribution to the full success of the project, which is why we consider this a very positive Executive PhD experience."

Sauro Pasini, Head of Technical Research - Engineering and Research Division, ENEL Engineering and Research

Prof. Carolina Di Biase 

"Many of our best students now work at the Architectural and Landscape Heritage Superintendency. Some are even Superintendents: two years ago we invited the Superintendent of Siena and Grosseto to our graduation ceremony. But it also works the other way: sometimes leading exponents of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage ask to be admitted to the PhD (we have one working in Brera this year). It is also for this reason that we have worked to create a more systematic relationship with the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and its most prestigious research centres."

Prof. Carolina Di Biase, Coordinator of the PhD in Preservation of the Architectural Heritage