Vittorio Rinaldi, 52, graduated with distinction in Education from the University of Verona. He gained his postgraduate degree in Developmental Anthropology and his doctorate in Anthropology of the Contemporary from Bicocca University, Milan. An anthropology teacher at the Universities of Verona, Milan Bicocca, and Florence, he has specialised in studying famines, crises and resilience amid environmental and economic disasters, themes to which he has dedicated the recent book “Anatomia della Fame” (Anatomy of hunger).

He worked for over twenty years as coordinator and assessor of cooperative-development and humanitarian-aid programmes. In particular, he worked on the ground for many years in Nicaragua and later in Somalia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brazil and Peru.

Since 1992, he has actively promoted social cooperatives providing healthcare and employment placements to further the social inclusion of elderly, disabled people, migrants and former prisoners. He has provided extensive social-inclusion training and consultancy services for public bodies and non-profit organisations.

He is currently President of the fair-trade consortium Altromercato and a director of the Solidarete foundation for internationalising social enterprise. He is also a member of the Arco research laboratory in Florence, of the scientific committee for the magazine Interculture, of the Terra Madre Lombardia network, and of the NEXT association (Nuova Economia per Tutti).