Communications

10.12 - 12.12.2009
 
L'Aquila,
Finmeccanica will be present with its own display area at the "Fiera della Conoscenza", an event promoted by Servizi Innovativi - Confindustria Abruzzo, to be held at the Guardia di Finanza school in Coppito, L'Aquila, from 10-12 December.

Finmeccanica and its companies ElsagDatamat, SELEX Communications, SELEX Service Management, Telespazio (67% Finmeccanica, 33% Thales) and Thales Alenia Space (67% Thales, 33% Finmeccanica) and will present the Group's technological capabilities - including those proposed at the G8 event in L'Aquila last July - in the sectors of aerospace and defence, security, support to civil protection activities and homeland security, used to assist the people affected by the earthquake in L'Aquila last April and in the rebuilding programme.

Finmeccanica will also introduce two projects that are under way in research and training that directly involve the region: the Space Academy Foundation and Joint Research Laboratories. The Space Academy Foundation - an initiative involving Telespazio, Thales Alenia Space and L'Aquila University as istitutional partners - aims to create a knowledge network between companies, universities,
research centres and institutions in the space sector.

The Joint Research Laboratories project is a laboratory created by Finmeccanica in partnership with L'Aquila University to enable students to develop specific expertise in the space sector, both in the University's areas of specialisation (engineering and mathematics disciplines), and in avionics and radio technologies and those connected with radar sensors and telecommunications systems, the key
specialisms of SELEX Communications and Thales Alenia Space, respectively.

Finmeccanica enjoys a strong industrial presence in the region. The Group employs around 850 people in the whole of Abruzzo, of whom 700 work in the province of L'Aquila, the area most seriously affected by the earthquake. Elsacom, SELEX Galileo, Telespazio, SELEX Communications and Thales Alenia Space all have premises there. Notably, the two plants of SELEX Communications and Thales Alenia Space were seriously damaged by the earthquake. 
 
Many of the two companies' employees in L'Aquila have already returned to work or have been temporarily transferred to other nearby sites, pending the building of a permanent plant to be shared by SELEX Communications and Thales Alenia Space.

Furthermore, since the early 1960s Telespazio has also operated a site in the province of L'Aquila, the Fucino Space Centre, which has 90 operational antennae and is today acknowledged as the world's largest teleport for civil telecommunications and space services. Fucino will also house one of the control centres for the Galileo European satellite constellation, to be inaugurated in early 2010.

To express its solidarity with colleagues and other people affected by the earthquake, the Group launched the initiative "Finmeccanica for Abruzzo" in April. Open to employees in Italy and abroad, as well as to external contributions, the initiative aims to raise funds for employees of the Group's Abruzzo-based companies and their families, and to respond to the region's priority needs.