The British writer J.G. Ballard said that “the proliferation of science and technology around us would have reached such a point that they would dictate the language we would have spoken and thought”. This time is coming. We need to begin to know and use this language or we risk remaining silent.

The current reality is complex and man lives in a society that is losing the attitude towards dialogue and thought. Moreover, the mind and the human body have always been modified by instruments, prostheses and things that have extended and multiplied the possibilities of interaction with the world, in a cognitive and operational sense.

We should not take things for granted. Science, like technology, affects our everyday life in many different ways: from the care of our health to that of our beauty, from our way of knowing the world to improving the quality of our life, from our way to communicate to our means of subsistence. By looking at it more closely, we could learn more about ourselves and the reality that surrounds us, just as we might be able to appreciate its benefits and assess its risks. But how closely?

Let’s start from the science we have on. Science permeates our reality in a profound way: from our way of being, doing and interacting with people to the way it influences our choices and decisions. In other words, our being twenty-first century men and women. That’s why it becomes increasingly necessary to know science to become more aware, more competent, more proactive, more active citizens. People with a “with firmness of mind”. This is what we want to deal with in the new edition of FermHAmente (note: in Italian Fermhamente sounds like mind with firmness!).

The Festival program offers over 70 events including conferences, workshops, shows, interactive exhibitions, scientific cafés, and special events dedicated to schools and the public, all completely free: a program with significant and high-level proposals that brings together important realities on the territory with prestigious national realities.

I would like to extend my thanks to all the partners including CNR, INFN, the International STEAM Movement Experience Workshop, the IDIS Città dellaScienza Foundation, the Lega del Filo D’Oro, the Museo del Balì and the magazines Focus Junior and Prisma who, with their proposals, add prestige and quality. My gratitude goes to them.