Expo Magazine The Worldwide Excellence

Milan is the ideal location for Expo 2015 because it is situated at the centre of an area of about 10 million inhabitants, similar to that of London or Paris; it producesaround 10% of the Italian GDP and has a per capita revenue almost the twice of that of other Italian cities and an unemplyment level almost the half of other Italian cities; Milan registers 40% of all innovation patents in Italy and is home to over 650 fashion showrooms; the city sells over 10 milion tickets for art, music and cinema each year; voluntary servces and tertiary industry competes with Paris and New York.

Milan's metropolitan area can be compared to London or Paris, accounting for about 9,3 million inhabitants. The city is located in the heart of Lombardy, the most populated and developed Italian region.

Milan is the economical crosspoint of Italy and accounts for themes directly connected with the Expo 2015 such as health sciences, education and training, food and the quality of life, solidarity and international cooperation. Every year 8,000 students from abroad come to attend university courses, summer schools or advanced seminars in Milan.

HEALTH SCIENCES

Two faculties of medicine, one offering first-degree courses specializing in Science for Food;
The Fondazione Policlinico [Polyclinic Foundation];
Three major hospital treatment institutions with the highest scientific credentials (the National Cancer Institute, Milan Maggiore Hospital, Carlo Besta National Neurological Institute);
Six private institutes (Fondazione Centro S. Raffaele, Centro Cardiologico Monzino, Fondazione Don Gnocchi, Istituto Auxiologico Italiano, the European Oncology Institute, Humanitas, and the Istituto Mario Negri);
1,897 companies in the health and hygiene industry, employing over 30,000 people;
20,000 workers engaged in research (one out of five Italian researchers) Milan accounts for €6.5bn of pharmaceutical and health product exports, 45% of the Italian total.

EDUCATION AND TRAINING

7 university centres with 44 faculties offering 831 degree and 640 postgraduate courses;
250,000 young people attending the universities of Lombardy every year (one in ten students in Italy);
5 hotel and catering institutions offering vocational and technical courses in catering.

FOOD AND THE QUALITY OF LIFE
The City of Milan is the only local authority in Italy which runs in-house catering (through its company, Milano Ristorazione SpA) for all the city's primary schools: one hundred thousand meals a year, with high standards of control on the quality of the food.

SOLIDARITY AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
Milan could reasonably be described as the capital of voluntary service in Italy, in terms of number of workers and associations operating in the voluntary sector (non-profit organizations, NGOs, etc.): there are in fact 3,000 registered associations within the City, and another 2,000 unregistered ones that provide help for the most needy. These associations represent 17.2% of the national total and employ some 25,000 people, besides 80,000 volunteers.
The Food Bank, a non-profit association which works with the food industry to provide goodquality food to the most disadvantaged families and individuals throughout Italy, was founded and developed in Milan.
Milan has also been chosen for the HQ of the Italian ONLUS Coordination Agency (for nonprofit organizations and NGOs), a government body reporting directly to the Prime Minister whose mission is to monitor and enforce “uniform and proper compliance with the legal rules and regulations” of non-profit organizations, the voluntary sector and non-commercial institutions throughout Italy.