Fiorella Operto – picture reproduced with the kind permission of the European Network of STEAM Educators
It was with great sadness that we learnt last month of the death of Fiorella Operto. A prominent and much-admired figure in Italian robotics education, Fiorella had served euRobotics with unfailing dedication as Italy’s national coordinator for European Robotics Week for many years.
Fiorella co-founded Scuola di Robotica in Genoa, one of Europe’s earliest organisations dedicated to educational robotics. Under her guidance, Scuola di Robotica became a reference point for teachers, researchers and policymakers interested in the educational potential of robotics.
Fiorella had always been an active contributor to our association. She supported euRobotics as a TG Coordinator as well as in her role as National ERW Coordinator for Italy.
As her colleagues at Scuola di Robotica have underlined, Fiorella had a passion for connecting with the weakest and most fragile in society, the excluded and marginalized, which in the case of technology, often means women and children. She brought this zeal to the organisation of European Robotics Week, consistently ensuring that Italy was well represented through diverse and impactful STEAM activities.
Our thoughts are with her family, friends, and the team at Scuola di Robotica. She will be greatly missed.
We conclude this heartfelt appreciation of Fiorella’s life and contribution with the translated words of her colleague at Scuola di Robotica, Filippo Bogliolo: “You taught us to create wonders, starting from simple, humble, recycled materials. Just like the jewellery you collected and were a master at. Because the value of things wasn’t in the materials chosen to build them, it was in the work and study that went into making them, in the mastery and precision. In fact, the stage we were performing on didn’t matter, or rather, you taught us to always commit ourselves deeply, no matter what the stage.
You spoke with Nobel Prize winners and homeless people, you wrote to the Pope (and he replied), you organized missions in Nepal, and then you got on the phone to answer the small problems of our daily work.”A fuller appreciation of Fiorella’s professional career can be found at Fiorella Operto – a life dedicated to science, robotics and STEAM education