Living Machines 2023 and the future of technology

Italy, Genoa. More precisely, we are at the Aquarium of Genoa where the 12th International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems (Living Machines 2023) is taking place on July 10-13 with MAPWORMS being one of its sponsors.

Surrouded from the deep blue sea of Liguria, Living Machines 2023 puts together some of the most brilliant minds from all over the world for a conversation on the future. The premise to the conversation starts from the aknowledgment of how crucial it is to understand the principles underlying living systems and the way living and artificial systems communicate in order to develop new technologies in the future.

The workshop on biorobotics at Living Machines 2023

Being biorobotics the focus of the conference, it wasn’t difficult to gather speaker from all over the planet neither wait for them to express their thoughts on the matter. The MAPWORMS team, as organisers of the workshop “Worm-Inspired Machines”, started by giving a general presentation of the project to the audience.

Then, Professor Luigi Musco, Veronica Iacovacci, and Jacopo Quaglierini went into detail of its three main modules. In particular, they focused on:

• the significance of studying the phylogeny, habitat adaptation and plasticity of the marine Annelida (Professor Musco from CoNISMa);
• the importance of mathematical modeling (Jacopo Quaglierini from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna);
• the relevance of magnetic actuation (Veronica Iacovacci from Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies).

Assistant Professor Linda Paternò was also on stage to give her contribution as essential part of the team.

After the general presentation, it was time for every speaker to take its time on stage and show its presentation. This way, the audience was made part of the reasoning behind the logical extension eventually obtained.

Final day at Living Machines 2023 was dedicated to the award ceremony. Two main categories were selected:

• Best post presentation, 1st and 2nd place;
• Best oral presentation, 1st and 2nd place.

Honorable mention to those who arrived 3rd.

The other participants were awarded with a free ticket for Living Machines 2024.