CEO AI4People
President Atomium-EISMD
Michelangelo Baracchi Bonvicini was born in London and grew up in Italy, where he completed his studies at the University of Bologna attaining a bachelors in History.
He began in 1999 as a war correspondent in Kosovo, Albania and Montenegro for the Italian editorial group Il Quotidiano Nazionale.
In 2002 he covered the second Intifada reporting from Israel and Palestine.
In 2003 he worked for the Italian newspaper Libero from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, following the US invasion of Afghanistan. In that same year he published Sognando Gerusalemme resulting from his reporting from Israel and Palestine in 2002.
With the former President of France Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Baracchi Bonvicini founded Atomium – European Institute for Science, Media and Democracy in November 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, together with twenty-two rectors and presidents from the partner universities.
In 2011, Baracchi Bonvicini and Giscard d’Estaing received the medal “Plus Ratio Quam Vis” from the Polish university Jagiellonian University for “their contribution to the European academic community by founding the institute”.
In September 2012, during the negotiations regarding the EU budget for 2014–2020, Baracchi Bonvicini and Giscard d’Estaing together with the former Prime Minister of Spain Felipe González Márquez, jointly signed the letter “For a European Consciousness, For a More Competitive Europe”, asking EU member states to increase the budget for research and innovation.
In 2018 Baracchi Bonvicini and Luciano Floridi launched AI4People Institute, bringing together researchers and policy makers to shape the debate on AI Ethics in the European Union.
In November 2018 with Tony Blair he presented at the European Parliament the “AI4People’s Ethical Framework for a Good AI Society: Opportunities, Risks, Principles, and Recommendations” during the “Towards a Good AI Society Summit” organised by Atomium-EISMD. The report is at the origins of the regulatory process that led to the AI Act in Europe, the world’s first AI regulation.
In May 2024 he launched AI4People Ltd to provide AI Risk Assessment services.