Lorenzo Santo

Lorenzo Santo was born in 1929 in Calizzano, a small mountain village where his father ran a forestry business. Renzo spent his childhood in fascist Italy, marching as a “little Balilla”; he attended the high school during war time, an experience which definitely shaped his life. He then moved to Genoa graduating in Economics with the highest grade in 1954. He began working in the shipping industry but soon moved to Milan to study and teach statistics and marketing. In 1960 he joined Olivetti, a leading Italian technology company and contributed to the team that built and launched the Programma 101, the world’s first personal computer. In 1976 he founded IDEA, its entrepreneurial venture which steadily grew for the following 25 years. IDEA, whose main business was the production of innovative, full stack, IT systems, excelled in UX and design, a vision not too dissimilar from Apple’s and focused on making technology available to everyone.

Remembering Lorenzo

When Renzo passed away we asked former colleagues and friends to write a few lines.