(Istituto Universitario Salesiano de Venezia, Italia) – The Holy See’s Dicastery for Evangelisation, Section for Fundamental Questions of Evangelisation in the World, in collaboration with the Salesian University Institute of Venice (IUSVE), is preparing to represent innovation in digital communication at the Holy See Pavilion at Expo 2025 in Osaka. From 22 to 28 September, ‘Harmonia’, a webapp that transforms Pope Leo XIV’s message of peace into a global chorus for universal brotherhood, will be presented and exhibited.
The IUSVE university mission to Expo 2025 Osaka, made possible thanks to the collaboration with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelisation and the IUSVE project Deutsche Post Stiftung, is led by Professor Michela Drusian, Head of the Communication Area, and composed of students Matteo Barbassi, Alessia Fattorel, Naike Pittana and Alice Tessari, who will present the project at the Holy See Pavilion.
The application, available at harmoniaexpo.org, was inspired by the words spoken by the Holy Father in his opening greeting on the day of his election, 8 May 2025: ‘Help us build bridges with dialogue, with encounter, uniting us all to be one people always at peace’.
The project – born from a proposal by the Director of Institutional Communication IUSVE, Marco Sanavio, and developed by computer scientists Luca Isoardi and Mattia Collino, with the support of the students of the University Institute and the lecturer Alessio Pomaro – allows users to record the Pontiff’s phrase in different languages of the world, displaying in real time the waveform and the peculiar characteristics of each voice.
The most innovative aspect of Harmonia lies in its final phase: at the end of the collection of all recordings, Artificial Intelligence will produce a single composite voice, the ‘Voice of the World’, which will represent the union of all the people who participated in the project to strongly call for planetary peace, making a personal commitment starting from their own daily experience.
‘This initiative perfectly represents our Salesian educational vocation,’ said Fr Nicola Giacopini, director of the IUSVE, ‘which is to use the new technologies to build bridges between peoples and give voice to the cry for peace that rises from the heart of humanity’.
The Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, Archbishop Fisichella, commented: ‘This initiative is a clear example of how new technologies can be used for good, creating real relationships and not only digital ones, because the importance of communication as an instrument of unity and peace is becoming more and more evident.’