The Italian government is making a selection of national innovations to bring to Shanghai’s Expo this year. There have been many entries, among them ours, and now Wired Italy is conducting an online poll to decide which will be the chosen ones to be present at the Expo. Representing Arduino, Massimo submitted an entry in the name of Smartprojects, the company manufacturing Arduino USB and Arduino Mega, as well as a bunch of the official shields. The whole campaign is in Italian, and therefore it is pretty hard for the non-Italian speakers to even get to know this is happening.

This is a call for you all to Vote for Arduino, if you are happy with the platform, if you enjoy learning and building with us, if you like it and if you like us, you can help us out getting more visibility in front of the world by visiting the following website and clicking on the five-starts rating system on top of the page. Please, go straight for the 5th star, we need all the help in the world to be one of the chosen ones.

http://www.italianvalley.it/ProjectDetail/179/2/Un-hardware-open-source-per-tutti-i-creativi-.aspx

As a thank you, here you get a video of Massimo explaining in Italian why Arduino should be representing Italy at the Expo:

Massimo applying to the Shanghai Expo 2010

UPDATE 20100510: not even 24 hours after the announcement on the blog, we are already second, guys thanks a lot for voting for us, we just need a couple of hundred more votes to make it to the first place!

UPDATE 20100510_2: Davide Gomba from Tinker.it! subtitled the movie with Massimo, for those of you wondering what he was saying in it :-)

El gobierno Italiano está haciendo una selección de innovaciones nacionales que traer a la exposición de Shanghai de este año. Hay muchas entidades participantes, entre otras la nuestra. Wired Italia es el responsable de estudiar que candidatos son los mejores en función de una votación online. Representado a Arduino, Massimo envió una solicitud en el nombre de Smartprojects, la empresa que fabrica Arduino USB y Arduino Mega, así como una serie de los shields oficiales. Toda la campaña es en Italiano, y puede resultar difícil de comprender si no se habla la lengua.

Este post es una llamada para que Voteis por Arduino. Si la plataforma responde a tus expectativas, si disfrutas aprendiendo y construyendo con nosotros, si te gusta y te gustamos, nos puedes ayudar a conseguir más visibilidad en todo el mundo visitando esta web y clickeando sobre las cinco estrellas del sistema de votación al principio de la página. Por favor, ve directo a por la 5a estrella, necesitamos toda la ayuda del mundo para ser elegidos.

http://www.italianvalley.it/ProjectDetail/179/2/Un-hardware-open-source-per-tutti-i-creativi-.aspx

Ahí va un vídeo de Massimo explicando porqué Arduino debiera ser elegido:

Massimo solitando enviar Arduino a la Expo 2010