Skip to main content

Kofi Annan helps formwork specialist Pilosio take CSR to the next level

Italian formwork specialist Pilosio held its fourth annual Building Peace Award in the historic setting of Venice’s Scuola Grande on Friday 12 September. This year’s winner was politician Samia Yaba Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana’s first democratically elected president, highlighting her planned project to build a new library and learning space in Akosombo, near Lake Volta, dedicated to her father. Over 300 guests from around the world, including 150 Pilosio clients, attended the event and heard keynote sp
September 16, 2014 Read time: 3 mins
Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations
Italian formwork specialist Pilosio held its fourth annual Building Peace Award in the historic setting of Venice’s Scuola Grande on Friday 12 September. This year’s winner was politician Samia Yaba Nkrumah, the daughter of Ghana’s first democratically elected president, highlighting her planned project to build a new library and learning space in Akosombo, near Lake Volta, dedicated to her father.

Over 300 guests from around the world, including 150 7163 Pilosio clients, attended the event and heard keynote speaker Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the 3262 United Nations, speak about the event’s theme: ‘Women as builders of Peace”. Annan also outlined the importance of corporate social responsibility and the need for the public and private sectors to work together:

“Given the problems we face, we cannot rely on governments to deal with it,” he said. “We need the private sector, civil society and we need foundations.”

Pilosio’s Building Peace Awards demonstrate a more direct approach to communicating and networking with clients and stakeholders. The firm has cut out all exhibitions except one, preferring to communicate its ethos and culture directly through this event.
For Pilosio CEO Dario Roustayan, the awards are an important way to connect with clients and strengthen the business; the combination of altruism and marketing make perfect sense: “What we are doing here is only possible and sustainable if we have a successful business,” he said.

Pilosio also used the event to reveal its ‘Shelters for Refugees’ project. Working with Habitat for Humanity founder, architect Cameron Sinclair, the firm has developed buildings for refugees constructed of scaffolding tubes and local materials such as sand or gravel.

“We felt the need to become stakeholders, to do something concrete,” said Routsayan.

With the possibility of combining the ‘L’ shaped units to create single homes, communities and buildings such as schools or clinics, the first two pilot school projects are already planned for a refugee camp in Jordan. The idea is that the structures can be dismantled at the end of a camp’s life and used to rebuild homes and community facilities in the refugees’ home countries.

The event also included a panel discussion of five influential women identified as Builders of Peace. These included Carolyn Miles, CEO of Save the Children, Khalida Brohl founder of the Sughar Empowerment Society which fights honour killings in Pakistan and Salini Costruttori board member and Poste Italiane chairman Luisa Todini.

Pilosio’s approach was very well-received among guests, with Tarek Al-Nassar, managing director of Arabian Roots Scaffolding taking to the stage to praise both Roustayan and Pilosio’s leadership.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Road safety education in the spotlight
    January 25, 2019
    Road safety education is severely lacking in much of Europe. That is the finding of research by the European Transport Safety Commission (ETSC). According to this new report, there are vast differences in the amount of road safety education given to children across Europe, particularly at secondary school level. The research shows that road safety education is provided to children in primary education all over Europe. However, it is not given to youngsters in secondary education in 20% of the 36 European s
  • Ma-estro turns quarry operators into skilled Q-PILOTS
    July 3, 2023
    As the adoption of artificial intelligence-based technology sweeps across various industrial sectors, concerns have surfaced about the potential displacement of human labour and professional expertise. In response, Ma-estro is championing AI-driven innovation as a means of bucking the trend, placing people back at the core of the quarrying sector with tools designed to enhance and improve human labour rather than supplant it.
  • Organisers of Italy’s conjoined Samoter-Asphaltica show are bullish for success
    January 16, 2014
    The organisers of the Samoter construction equipment show being held in the historic Italian city of Verona are bullish for the success of the event. This will be the 29th edition of Samoter, an international triennial exhibition focussing on earthmoving and site machinery. It will also be the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the event, which will also co-host the Asphaltica exhibition for road paving, safety and infrastructures for the first time. Asphaltica is organised in cooperation with Siteb, the
  • Plain sailing for Caterpillar’s PM 300 series
    February 22, 2019
    Caterpillar’s revamped small cold planers have upped the stakes in the urban refurbishing market. World Highways deputy editor David Arminas recently caught up with A.J. Lee, global segment manager, on Spain’s Costa del Sol