An exhibition dedicated to the Italian scientist Luigi Broglio, creator of the Space Centre dedicated to him, better known as 'Base San Marco' north of Malindi, was inaugurated on Tuesday in the presence of the Kenyan Minister of Defence, Aden Duale, the Minister of the Environment, Sopian Tuya, and the Italian Ambassador to Kenya, Roberto Natali.
After a preview in the ambassador's residence, on the occasion of the 2 June celebrations, there could not have been a better place for the presentation of "Luigi Broglio, a Kenyan trip to the stard", an exhibition conceived and curated by the director of this online publication, Freddie del Curatolo, and produced by the Italian Cultural Institute of Nairobi (the embassy's cultural office), in collaboration with the Italian Space Agency (ASI), La Sapienza University of Rome and the Kenya Space Agency (KSA). In fact, the exhibition was set up during the second edition of the Kenya Space Expo & Conference in Nairobi, an event on space technology that confirms Kenya's progress in the aerospace field and its ongoing collaboration with the Italian state.

Minister Duale spoke of this long partnership, which began with Broglio's arrival in Kenya and his government's agreements with the then 'father of the fatherland' Jomo Kenyatta, just a year after the African country's independence.
"We must be grateful to Italy for its support over the years," Duale said during the Expo opening ceremony, "especially for the training of our students and technicians at the Malindi Space Centre. It is a fundamental partnership for our growth'.
The ambassador also recalled how Italy has always focused on education and inclusivity, including opening up to the world of women as far as space is concerned.
"An inclination demonstrated by our woman, Samantha Cristoforetti, who is an example for many other women who want to make a career in this sector".
Returning to the exhibition, Natali showed the ministers and the Kenya Space Agency's top management the 14 panels that tell the story of the great scientist, founder of the school of aerospace engineering and who then had the intuition to focus on the equator and Kenya to launch the first satellites that Africa can count on and be one of the first five countries in the world to launch satellites into space.

It is a story that ties in with that of Malindi and the Italian Malindi, which began to be populated by compatriots in the late 1960s, also thanks to the presence of some 150 Italian technicians, engineers and workers and their families. A history of cooperation that also made the local population grow and created jobs right from the start and that has gradually evolved with the creation of schools, hospital clinics and, recently, roads. It recounts the launches of the San Marco satellites, from the first in 1967 to the last in 1988, and the activity of the two platforms off the coast of Ngomeni, in the Bay of Ungwana, but also the dreams realised and also those that that tireless genius Professor Broglio would have liked to have realised.
An exhibition created to tour the universities and places of culture and science in Kenya and which we hope to soon bring to Malindi, where it all began. Fundamental to the success of this splendid exhibition, in addition to the curator and his wife Leni, were graphic designer Fabrizio Sisti, the faculty of aerospace engineering at Rome's La Sapienza University, the Italian Space Agency, Elio and Carla Altomare who provided unique and invaluable archive images, and other former employees of the Space Centre and the Kenya Space Agency.