In her second year in the Department of Political Science, Elisabetta D'Amico is the LUISS student that took the TEDxLUISS stage on May 6, 2016 alongside 13 other speakers from around the world.On April 7, 2016 Elisabetta won the student-speaker finals hosted in the LUISS Language Café. "I never thought I would make it to the finals or win. I sent my video after taking an exam, almost by chance, in order to spread a message that I take to heart, regardless of the outcome of the competition". In high school, Elisabetta spent a year in China with an Intercultura program.
"It's been the most significant experience in my life. It surely contributed in my academic choices and gave me the strength to try this experience." The message she presented at the contest and she spoke about on the stage of the TEDxLUISS was inspired by her time in China: "My idea of (r)evolution is investing in social capital and happiness, and inverting the trend of using material wealth as the only way of measuring the wellbeing of a country."
Using both the GNH (Gross National Happiness) and the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is an economic theory that has been well studied, "starting in 2011 when the United Nations added happiness to the global agenda,” explains Elisabetta. “Denmark invested a million dollars in a study of the impact of social capital, and in 2008 France financed research by Joseph Stiglitz, Amartya Sen and Jean Paul Fitoussi on the same theme. I know that the word happiness is a bit trivial, but the idea that a country’s GDP is not a true measure of its wellness has been a hot topic for years. We are currently experiencing increasingly marked inequality. Power and capital are becoming more concentrated in the hands of few, and this is not a variable taken into consideration by the GDP."
A prime example of this is China. “It’s an emerging state and in 2014 its GDP surpassed the United States’, yet wellbeing is not felt there. Life in the country is so focused on economic growth that it is destroying its humanity and culture.
Elisabetta explains that this is “not something that is truly welcomed, and tends to be oversimplified, and I will talk about it in my speech. There are definitely controversial sides to this idea, but I would like to transmit it in the best light possible, alongside positive, intercultural values. It’s something I truly believe in and I want to promote it no matter what."
In the days before her talk, Elisabetta focused in on the event. “I read a lot and chose the information I wanted to mention in the speech to make it more personal and impactful. I have a limited amount of time to prove that my choice was not a casual one. Its amazing that the university hosts events like this, organized by students, especially considering that TED Talks are constant sources of inspiration. It’s an honor for both them and the universities that host them.”
Next year, Elisabetta is going back to China thanks to the bilateral exchange with the University of Nottingham Ningbo. It’s a country you can’t fully understand in a year. I was there only as a high school student, and I am curious to see university life, refresh my Chinese and to see how I'll feel there, three years later. It will be a different experience also in part because the first time there, my host family lived on the border with Russia while this time I’ll be in the south. They’re like two different hemispheres, separated by 24 hours of travel, so I expect several differences.”
