Three centuries ago, an Italian cartographer traced the coastline of Chile. It was a simple gesture — just a line on a map — yet it quietly connected two worlds long before they realized how profoundly they would need one another.
At the Premio Firenze Capitale 2025, that line returned in a new form: a strategic corridor between Italy and Chile known as CopiaPort-E, and a renewed alliance between two nations with a shared instinct for imagination, resilience, and ambition.
For this vision, Todd Callender — founder of the CopiaPort-E initiative — received the Strategic Vision & Global Cooperation Award, assigned by The Italian Mind: A One Off® and presented inside the historic halls of Palazzo Medici Riccardi and Palazzo Gondi. An award that recognizes not only a project, but a bridge — cultural, economic, diplomatic — between Italy and Latin America.
A Forgotten Route, Rediscovered
In his acceptance speech, Callender recalled the old cartographer’s map as if it were a prophetic sketch.
“What we are doing is not just building a port or a corridor. We are renewing a relationship between two cultures that have always shared a talent for imagination, resilience, and ambition.”
Italy, he noted, has always exported more than products: it exports method, beauty, engineering ethics, and the courage to build what does not yet exist. Chile, facing two oceans and shaped by dramatic geography, has long embraced strategic openness and institutional clarity. CopiaPort-E is where these two heritages meet again — not as nostalgia, but as infrastructure turned into meaning.
Where Heritage Becomes Horizon
The Atacama Desert and the Mediterranean may appear distant, yet they share the same calling:
transform hardship into opportunity. This parallel defines the new partnership.
• Italy contributes world-class design, engineering discipline, and a diaspora that understands Latin America deeply.
• Chile contributes geography, macro-stability, and a bold vision for a new bioceanic future for South America.
“Together,” Callender said, “we are creating more than infrastructure. We are creating a bridge — one that unites continents, strengthens diplomacy, and transforms trade into meaning.” CopiaPort-E is not just a port. It is a cultural handshake, a bilateral act of imagination where history becomes future.
A Strategic Moment for Italy and Latin America
The award arrives at a pivotal time. Under the leadership of Minister Antonio Tajani, Italy has renewed its strategic engagement with Latin America — economically, diplomatically, and culturally.
The Italian Mind, the think-tank leading the Premio Firenze Capitale, has played a key role in this renewed alignment, bringing together institutional actors, industry leaders, and international partners in a single platform of shared intelligence and forward vision.
In this context, CopiaPort-E stands as tangible proof of what collaboration can achieve when heritage meets horizon, and when Italian ingenuity meets Chilean strategic openness.
A Bridge Not Drawn, But Built
For We the Italians, the story of Callender and CopiaPort-E speaks directly to the heart of the Italian diaspora: the conviction that Italy’s contribution to the world is not only material, but civilizational.
Three centuries ago, an Italian hand drew a coastline. Today, through CopiaPort-E, Italy helps redraw the geopolitical map of Latin America.
The award to Todd Callender celebrates that enduring continuity:Italy builds bridges — even when they begin as a line on an ancient map.
