Creativity as Infrastructure for System Change | Milan Longevity Summit 2026

*Before we can build a different future, we have to be able to imagine one.* We often think of infrastructure as something physical: roads, institutions, technologies, networks, and systems. But meaningful transformation also depends on something less visible: our collective capacity to imagine possibilities beyond the structures we already know. In this conversation from the *Humanity Stage at the Milan Longevity Summit 2026*, *Adama Sanneh*, Co-founder and CEO of the Moleskine Foundation, joins moderator *Sharon Cittone*, CEO of Edible Planet Ventures, to explore creativity not simply as artistic expression, but as *infrastructure for social and systemic change*. Complex challenges rarely have linear solutions. Climate change, inequality, health, education, demographic transformation, and the future of work require us to question assumptions, connect ideas across disciplines, and imagine alternatives to systems that no longer serve us. Creativity makes that possible. The conversation explores why creative thinking should be treated as a fundamental human capability, how culture and education can strengthen people's ability to imagine and act on different futures, and why access to creative opportunity matters for who gets to participate in shaping change. It also raises an important question in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence: *as machines become more capable of generating content and answers, does our distinctly human capacity to ask different questions, create meaning, and imagine what does not yet exist become even more valuable?* For Sanneh, creativity is deeply connected to agency. Giving people the tools, spaces, and confidence to express ideas can help them move from experiencing systems as something imposed upon them to seeing themselves as participants capable of changing them. *Participants:* • Adama Sanneh – Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer, Moleskine Foundation • Moderated by Sharon Cittone – Chief Executive Officer, Edible Planet Ventures Ultimately, system change is not only a technical challenge. It is an imaginative one. *If we want different systems, we need people capable of imagining different possibilities. Creativity is therefore not a luxury at the edges of transformation. It is part of the infrastructure that makes transformation possible.* *Powered by Lundbeck* #MilanLongevitySummit #Creativity #SystemsChange #HumanPotential #Culture #FutureOfSociety #SocialInnovation #Humanity #OneHealth #FutureThinking