Even the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia for Christmas 2016 was won by one of the most viral challenges on the web: the mannequin challenge. Researchers, administrative and research support staff took part to this challenge became so popular on the web.
The video shows the IIT headquarters based in Genoa, the central laboratory of the network, and the camera run through life sciences, microscopy, nanotechnology and robotics labs, common areas of the instate such as the entrance, the reception and the canteen. All the people frozen for almost three minutes and at the end of the video a “movement to the future” of one of the symbols of the IIT, the world’s most popular humanoid robot, iCub. In the video you can observe the IIT staff during their daily activities or “unusual situations”.
In IIT there are about 1,500 employees coming from over 50 countries, with an average age of 34 and 46% of whom are from abroad (16% are returned Italians). The IIT network currently consists of 11 laboratories throughout Italy (which in total occupy 45,000sqm) at some of the most important Italian universities (University of Trento, Polytechnics of Milan and Turin, Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Federico II University of Naples, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna of Pisa, Sapienza of Rome, Università del Salento of Lecce, Ifom-IEO of Milan, University of Ferrara), and 2 outstations in the USA in collaboration with MIT and Harvard. Recently IIT has been reported by Nature as a “rising stars” in the world research institute scenario.
