BergamoScienza is a

science festival A science festival is a festival that showcases science and technology with the same freshness and flair that would be expected from an arts or music festival and primarily targets the general public. These public engagement events can be varied, ...

held annually in

Bergamo Bergamo (; lmo, Bèrghem ; from the proto- Germanic elements *''berg +*heim'', the "mountain home") is a city in the alpine Lombardy region of northern Italy, approximately northeast of Milan, and about from Switzerland, the alpine lakes Como ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

. Established in 2003, its purpose is to promote the popularization of science. The festival consists of lectures, exhibitions, interactive workshops, as well as meetings with scientists. The event BergamoScienza is organized by the

Non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

BergamoScienza, whose founders were a group of friends. 24

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

laureates have participated to BergamoScienza since 2003, among them

John F. Nash John Forbes Nash Jr. (June 13, 1928 – May 23, 2015) was an American mathematician who made fundamental contributions to game theory, real algebraic geometry, differential geometry, and partial differential equations. Nash and fellow ga ...

, Kari Mullis,

Paul Crutzen Paul Jozef Crutzen (; 3 December 1933 – 28 January 2021) was a Dutch meteorologist and atmospheric chemist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his work on atmospheric chemistry and specifically for his efforts in studying ...

Roald Hoffman Roald Hoffmann (born Roald Safran; July 18, 1937) is a Polish-American theoretical chemist who won the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He has also published plays and poetry. He is the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, Emeritus, at ...

Peter Agre Peter Agre (born January 30, 1949) is an American physician, Nobel Laureate, and molecular biologist, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director o ...

, Aaron Ciechanover, Martin Chalfie, Eric Kandel, Barry Marshall,

R. Timothy Hunt Sir Richard Timothy Hunt, (born 19 February 1943) is a British biochemist and molecular physiologist. He was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Paul Nurse and Leland H. Hartwell for their discoveries of protein molec ...

Linda Buck Linda Brown Buck (born January 29, 1947) is an American biologist best known for her work on the olfactory system. She was awarded the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, along with Richard Axel, for their work on olfactory receptors. She ...

Bruce Beutler Bruce Alan Beutler ( ; born December 29, 1957) is an American immunologist and geneticist. Together with Jules A. Hoffmann, he received one-half of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, for "their discoveries concerning the activatio ...

James Dewey Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...

. Among innovative personalities,

Jimmy Wales Jimmy Donal Wales (born August 7, 1966), also known on Wikipedia by the pseudonym Jimbo, is an American-British Internet entrepreneur, webmaster, and former financial trader. He is a co-founder of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedi ...

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read refer ...

founder attended the conference. Michael Stuart Brown at BergamoScienza 2014

In 2004, there were over 35,000 attendees; by 2008, over 72,000 people attended the festival; in the 2011 edition, 112 500. There has never been any charge for admission. Notable past presenters include Burt Rutan (2004),

Marvin Minsky Marvin Lee Minsky (August 9, 1927 – January 24, 2016) was an American cognitive and computer scientist concerned largely with research of artificial intelligence (AI), co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's AI laboratory, an ...

(2006), and

Luciano Maiani Luciano Maiani (born 16 July 1941, in Rome) is a Sammarinese physicist best known for his prediction of the charm quark with Sheldon Glashow and John Iliopoulos (the "GIM mechanism"). Academic history In 1964 Luciano Maiani received his degree in ...

(2008). The 2009 festival included a presentation regarding

, as well as the exhibition "From the Moon to the Earth", organized by the

Museo di Scienze Naturali Enrico Caffi Civic Museum of Natural Science Enrico Caffi ( it, Museo di Scienze Naturali Enrico Caffi) is a natural history museum in Bergamo, Italy. The museum has more than 55,000 artifacts, fossils, animal and plant specimens. The museum is founded in 1918 ...

References

Recurring events established in 2003 Festivals in Italy Science festivals Culture in Bergamo 2003 establishments in Italy Tourist attractions in Lombardy Science events in Italy {{Europe-festival-stub