I was just off a plane, so quite tired. But founder Alberto Masetti-Zannini invited me so kindly that I resolved to forgo stopping at home and headed straight from the airport to Hub Milano‘s opening party. It turned out to be a good idea.

To begin with, it was a nice party. Drink and dancing were available. Both hosts and guests, obviously elated, had a go at both. Then I was glad that Italy, all too used to missing important trains, managed to put together a node of the Hub network. But the best thing was that, though many people were meeting for the first time, it felt like everyone was part of the same scene: CriticalCity‘s complete board with Medhin Paolos of Reti G2 (in my opinion one of the most interesting nonprofit organizations in Italy), Esterni‘s Beniamino Saibene, Emil Abirascid, Euclid Network‘s executive director Filippo Addarii, Luca Perugini with Roberto Bonzio, the visionary journalist who started italianidifrontiera, Andrea Paoletti, the architect who designed Hub Milano as well as some even weirder stuff… Unfortunately the Campari Museum had a simultaneous grandopening, so that Massimo Banzi and his crew were missing, and I think they are a key piece of this Milano.

The diversity of the – very respectable – skills and the mutual accessibility of these people are obvious. Seeing them hang out and have fun together gave me the feeling that they share some key values and a certain way to approach the world, and it was a good feeling. As I went home, for once I allowed myself a cautious optimism: maybe there is still hope for Milano, maybe this crowd can express a project to get the city back on track. And, by extension, there may be hope for this country too, because I have few doubts that the most important match for Italy’s future will take place in Milano.