MIND’s partners, through a team made up entirely of women, have promoted an initiative on the toponymy of the district together with the City of Milan. The decision is to name all the streets of the future district after women and men of science, innovators – a genuinely gender-balanced proposal.
One can understand the values and the challenges of a place by its streets, too. With the toponymy initiative launched in 2021, MIND has committed itself, together with the City of Milan, to naming all future streets in the district after leading figures in science and innovation. They will do so by dedicating to women the space that has not been granted to them so far in Italy.
In a country where more than 90% of the streets are dedicated to men or enterprises carried out by men, at least half of the streets in the district will be named after women scientists and innovators. The proposal accepted by the municipality is the result of the work of a group within MIND made up entirely of women professionals.
The toponymy project began on 1 May 2021, a symbolic date marking exactly six years since the start of Expo 2015, with the official ceremony dedicated to the great neurologist Rita Levi-Montalcini, Nobel Prize winner for Medicine and former life senator. The street named after her is the main vertical axis of the site, originally called Cardo during Expo, and where the Human Technopole Institute for Life Sciences is now based. Keeping the memory of the Universal Exposition alive are Viale Decumano, which retains the name used during the big event, and Piazzale Expo 2015, the main square where Viale Decumano meets the former Cardo, now Via Levi-Montalcini.