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Todi, an original watercolour painting on hand made paper by Alan Reed. alanreed.com

Cortona Week in Todi 2019

A programme to foster a new class of world leaders

An inspiring interdisciplinary week in the heart of Italian Renaissance

An immersion in the complexity of today's world

‘The week in Todi (22-29 June 2019) is the sequel of the Cortona Week, an interdisciplinary residence where graduate students and young managers from all over the world and from all disciplines are “mixed” (in addition to several critical scientists) , with artists, musicians, spiritual leaders, poets, professionals in medicine and psychology, politicians.

We work together in round table discussions, lectures and experiential workshops, where the participants can, for instance, paint, do sculpture or music, meditation, theatre choosing by themselves which aspects of life are more important for their own equilibrium.

The aim, with the help of world-renowned professionals and visionaries, is to open up the horizon of the participants to the values of ecology, ethics, tolerance, internal introspection as well as the actual new frontiers of science, literature, art, economics — the full display of human experience — where life becomes a system view of interacting parts, and not an addition of single isolated domains.

We devote ourselves to this task with the cognition that such a holistic, systemic thinking is generally not provided by our common academic institutions — which form optimised specialists in only one discipline –, and noticing, as a consequence, that the problems of our world cannot be solved or even tackled by only one discipline at a time.

The final, ideal aim of Cortona Week is to forge and catalyze a new class of world leaders — a thing of the utmost necessity for our world today; and to reinforce ethics and human dignity in an environment which presently entails the danger of becoming foreign or even hostile to us.’

SCIENTIFIC DIRECTION: Pier Luigi Luisi, Prof. Emeritus ETH Zurich

Prof. Pier Luigi Luisi

Professor Emeritus at the ETHZ (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), a professor of biochemistry and a leading authority on the origin of life (cells), prebiotic chemistry, and synthetic biology, and a pioneer of  a "systems view of life" which involves thinking of cells as integrated automated information-based biochemical entities. In 1985 he founded Cortona Week, the legacy to the Todi-Week (devoted to the interdisciplinarity of science and humanities). Prof. Pier Luigi Luisi, Professional Profile

ADVISORY BOARD: Fritjof Capra, Physicist and Author, Berkeley, USA; Michel Bitbol, Philosopher, Paris, France; brother David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine Monk, Ithaca, USA; Renuka Singh, Professor of Sociology, New Delhi, India; David Lorimer, Pres. Medical network, Aberdeen, UK; Wittfrida Mitterer, bio-architecture, Professor at LUMSA and Innsbruck university, Jorg Rasche, psychotherapist, Berlin, Germany, Kamran Mofid, Founder, Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative (GCGI),UK.

Cortona Week in Todi, 22-29 June 2019 – Being Human in a Technological World

See the Final Programme here

The Location – Todi: the ideal city in the heart of Italy

Photo:smartraveltoitaly.com

“Todi is the best man could desire on Earth: the hilly microclimate is ideal, precipitation is adequate, humidity is low, temperature acceptable. Its size is also ideal: Todi is not too small, nor does it suffer from overgrowth. What is more, the relationship with the surrounding area, particularly farmland, is exemplary”

According to the legend, Todi was founded by Hercules in the far 1330 BC and went under the name Eclis. More ascertained and reliable sources situate the foundation of the historical city in the 8th-7th century BC and attribute it to the ancient Umbri, that had been already populating the central and mountainous spine of Italy for more than a millennium. Since marking the border between them and the Etruscans, the Umbri strategically decided to perch it on a hilltop overlooking one of the banks of the Tiber river, flowing all the way to Rome. Annexed to the Etruscan kingdom first and then Romanized, later it came to be Byzantine together with few other strategic centers of the area. After a period of dormancy in the early Middle Ages, Todi flourished again as an independent town, excelling in the arts of ceramics, jewelry and marquetry. Of these prosperous times, the city saves the traces in its corners, palaces, churches, like as if borne to us frozen within its walls.

Sitting on a hill, the city shows its slight detachment and, at the same time, its bonds with the farming fields stretching at its feet; it represents an urban utopia: Richard S. Levine, a professor of architecture at the University of Kentucky and pioneer of sustainability, chose Todi as the model sustainable city, because of its scale and its ability to reinvent itself over time. After that, the Italian press reported on Todi as the world’s most livable city. Professor Levine concludes after a thorough study on Sustainable Cities. Discover more about Todi

Conference venue: Hotel Bramante


Hotel Bramante is the former Franciscan monastery of Santa Margherita, a 12th-century building that has been restored as a hotel maintaining its original stone walls, terracotta floors and rooms derived from the nuns’ cells. Only a few steps away from one of the most famous monuments of Todi, Donato Bramante’s Tempio della Consolazione, the hotel is located in the upper part of the city, overlooking the valley and surrounded by a breathtaking scenery...See more about Hotel Bramante

In Search of the Light to Build a Better World

At Todi we will continue our journey of Hope. A journey which  is about many things. It is about challenging the norm. It is about volunteerism and service. It is about serving our communities, our world, and caring for our planet, our home. It is about finding out more about ourselves than we ever imagined possible. It is about having a dream. It is about a mission and our vocation in life. It is about believing in our journey and stories.

‘It is hope that can give meaning to life and which will give us the courage to continue on our way into the future together.’

And this is why Todi-Week 2019, similar to previous gatherings in Todi and Cortona before that, offers a journey of hope to all those dreaming for a better world, a world of wisdom and beauty, peace and justice, fairness and kindness, trust and ethics, caring for our Sacred Earth and Mother Nature.

GCGI is proud to cooperate closely with Todi-Week. It is thus, my pleasure to ask all our friends to consider joining us at Todi. Let us march together, taking action in the interest of the common good, to design and construct a better world that we are all yearning for.

Registration deadline has been extended. A few places are still available. Due to a recent grant, there are possibilities of scholarship, reducing the overall cost of attendance. See the link below and contact the Conference Secretariat for more and latest details: REGISTRATIONS

So there you have it. Going to Todi with the hope of co-creating a better world together. Hope to see you there.