Build the aircraft of the future with easy STEM

Discover all the features of Leonardo's AW609, the world’s first commercial tiltrotor.

WHO MADE THE VIDEO?

What do you do in Leonardo?
I deal with innovation in the field of autonomous pilots (in jargon FCS: Flight Control System), in the Helicopters Division. In particular, I work on how to apply artificial intelligence within our sector.

What work did you want to do as a child?
McGyver. I wanted to make McGyver – the main character of the homonymous television series popular in the 80s / 90s – and my mom told me that to be like him "who knows how to repair everything", I had to study engineering... Today I am not very far from my childhood dreams: if it were not that I am bald (and therefore I do not have the popular 80s tuft that he had), I am not a secret agent and I cannot make a helicopter with a pencil and a paperclip! But I did build a Tiltrotor with little bricks!

What did you study?
Aerospace Engineering in Milan, specialising in Aerodynamics. Then I was business manager for a consulting firm in Paris and I established a start-up in Marseille. I returned to Italy in 2014 thanks to a grant for the Masters in Rotary Wing Technologies provided by AgustaWestland. The company then gave me the opportunity to obtain a post graduate degree in Machine Learning organised by Emeritus and Columbia University. Now I am undertaking a Masters in Artificial Intelligence. You never stop learning.

Easy STEM for you means...
To give everyone the opportunity to understand that science is not boring, difficult to access or something abstract. There are many practical applications of STEM disciplines. Understanding it from an early age would undermine the many preconceptions that revolve around scientific subjects, such as the fact that they are only for a male audience.