End of the year reflections, and wishes for a 2025 of growth

Dear members, friends, supporters,

It's that moment again... that conventional fraction of our planet's orbit around its sun the human society we live embedded in has agreed to consider the end of a year and the symbolic gate to the future.

"Fireworks" by Adam Carter - licensed under CC BY 2.0

It is customary to look back and reflect upon the year that is closing, to celebrate one' successes and to identify the learning opportunities offered by those occurrences that required an adapatation to the plans.

Joining forces with precious and enthusiastic partners we have been rather successful in having our messages heard about the importance of a new new course of policy making to promote the health of the Mediterranean region investing in the protection of the sea and its ecosystems (read more here and here), and promoting mission oriented cooperation among the human communities around the basin to promote peace and prosperity.

We have contributed to the public and technical conversations building public understanding of data and the social and economic impact of their exploitation, emphasizing the value of contextuality and intentionality. We didn't forget the need to workout and point a way for economic opportunities, when discussing the value of contextuality and metadata.

We found great partners in Salotto Privacy, sharing the intuition that law making and policy making are activities that shape markets and society, and this year we have invested in forming a community of experts (Digital Governance Italian Club) and bridging the gap with communities of practice.

We continued studying and exploring novelties in care practices, engaging with the daring and the ethical pirates.

 The achievements in 2024 and upcoming plans of our partnership within BioDynaMo are many and are better summarised in 2024's BioDynaMo consortium end of the year reflections.

A year, in summary, we can proudly look back at, this closing 2024.

We had however our share of setbacks. Uncertain feedbacks by local authorities in Lussy (Villaz, Fribourg, CH) are holding back our "cocoa plantation" system ecological niche engineering program; an insufficient focus on fundraising has made us unable to support members, requiring that they relocate following employment opportunities and forcing us to adapt and renegotiate the dynamics of our collaboration; an unmet need to produce divulgative material about our work to address the growingly diverse range of people and stakeholders we are interacting with or being discovered by. Last but not least geopolitical instability has hit the funding we thought secured for one of our fundamental research projects, stalling our activities for a whole year.

To mention just the setbacks that are hurting the most, and we would welcome your help about with open arms 🤗

Plans are in motion, and we have a promising agenda, for 2025 to be consolidate our successes and grant we keep building on them and on lessons leaernt. But we are not shy to admit that would love to work with you. We are eager to codesign ways to ensure everyone can be productive and supportive of the public good whilst not falling victim to exploitative practices, and generating flows for a healthy livelihood. And our efforts to ensure partners can benefit from first hand access to knowledge, trusted partnerships, and expertise are growing, as we realize models that avoid to put this first comer advantage in conflict with public good and accessibility.

So do reach out and join our family, as our group grows we can do more and we can do it better.

Ad maiora, to a happy and successful 2025!

Marco, Stef, Taghi.