Dear Colleagues and Friends, One of the President’s tasks is to deliver a message to the members and guests of the Association. My task today, after the brilliant presidential address given by Pascal Vouhe last year, followed by a spectacular musical performance, is particularly difficult: it is like organizing the Olympic games after those in Beijing in 2008. Truly impossible to outdo! Therefore, my speech will be unpretentious and mainly related to our work and our daily lives. First, let me explain the title of my talk. When I was a research fellow at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, USA, every Sunday my wife and I used to take our little girl, Cecilia, to a park close to our house, so she could play with the other children. Once, I took a picture (Fig. 1), which I showed to the mother of the other children. She looked at it and after a few moments said: ‘The beauty of the differences!’ This short, spontaneous comment remained indelible in my mind and became a sort of inspiring motif in my life and in my profession. It means appreciation, respect, acceptance, understanding and tolerance for different opinions, attitudes, cultures and backgrounds. It means ‘open mindedness’ and therefore ‘potential for growth’. Historically, every time differences have been recognized, appreciated and incorporated, the final result has been progress and an advance in civilization. Let us consider the glorious history of Venice: a millennium of independence and splendour! For centuries, Venice was a flourishing trade centre lying between Europe and the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic world and the East. By the late 13th century, Venice was the most prosperous city in all Europe. The Grand Canal, shaped like an inverted letter S (Fig. 2), is an uninterrupted sequence of splendid palaces, reflecting a great variety of influences and cultures from far away, and incorporating different styles (Byzantine, Gothic, Renaissance, Classical and Baroque etc.) (Fig. 3). Venice’s leading families vied with each other to build the grandest palaces, employing the greatest architects and the most talented artists. Every wealthy Venetian wanted his palace to be the most beautiful and unique. Therefore, the Grand Canal is a hymn to the differences, and the differences are a hymn to beauty! I will try to transfer these concepts to our profession, first considering education and training.