As I write these lines, a year decidedly different than how we imagined it and how we’d have liked it to be is coming to an end. The thoughts and wishes in our minds a year ago seem abysmally different from what ensued and what is still happening. 

This goes for our professional and personal lives as much as it does for our Alumni Association. At the heart of our thoughts is grief for what has occurred as well as tension for the future and a yearning for a future that follows tragedies like pandemics.

The next year will be crucial for us all. On one hand we must continue to live with the virus, while on the other, we long to start fresh thanks to the breaking point caused by recent events.

In assessing this year’s activities, we cannot be anything but satisfied with what we’ve managed to accomplish and make available to Luiss Alumni.

We couldn’t let ourselves get discouraged and we didn’t. The Alumni Association stood by those who were suffering, for example with our fundraiser for Spallanzani Hospital.

The success of our Mentoring Program also deserves mention here, among other initiatives. Without the enthusiastic evolvement of alumni around the world, the scale that we achieved would not have been possible. The renewed vitality in our international chapters, with a new Dublin chapter being inaugurated in 2020, is part of this picture.

Relying solely on digital platforms is certainly not an ideal way to stimulate engagement within a community, or to scale up, as startuppers would say.

We feel that the time is ripe to go even bigger and it would be wonderful if each of us could take some time and commit to involving alumni that you are in contact with.

If our objective is to increase engagement within the community, one useful way for the new year is increasing involvement in LA4G, the Luiss alumni investment club that is now fully operational.

Obviously, we cannot (and don’t want) to achieve our goals exclusively by digital means, even if the use of digital platforms allows us to maintain more frequent contact than may be feasible with in-person events.

A new world awaits us, perhaps not too far from now. And we’re all ready and waiting for it.

On behalf of the entire Board of Directors and myself, I send out the warmest of wishes to all Luiss alumni.

Andrea Battista, President of the Luiss Alumni Association