Urban planner, engaged in politics (he was mayor of Ivrea and a parliamentarian), designer, architect, publisher. Adriano Olivetti it was all this, but above all it was one of the most innovative entrepreneurs of the Italian Post-War period. 

In 1938, he inherited control of the company founded by his father Camillo, which had an established business in the world of typewriters: truly legendary pieces, such as the M20 and the MP1, which made the Olivetti brand known worldwide.

Adriano in that company did not start as "the boss's son," but as a worker: in 1924 begin the apprenticeship after graduating in industrial chemistry. Here he understands, as he himself writes, that "it is necessary to understand the darkness of a Monday in the life of a worker, otherwise one cannot perform the job of a manager, one cannot lead if one does not know what others do. Ua philosophy that will lead to revolutionizing the very concept of the factory, approving corporate welfare measures, work-life balance, bringing together technical and humanistic teams: insights that still seem cutting-edge today.

Between the late 1930s and early 1940s, Olivetti grew and expanded its interests to include teleprinters, calculators, and office equipment. Starting from the 1950s, the company also focused on electronics, making giant strides in the entire sector and outperforming renowned American companies such as IBM and HP. Let's focus on this last intense phase of Adriano Olivetti's life, born on April 11 almost 120 years ago.

The 1950s, Olivetti's passion for electronics

«Before money, it was our intention to offer them a challenge, the opportunity to participate with enthusiasm and motivation in an innovative venture, with a spirit of adventure and the aspiration to conquer something new.».

A remember Olivetti's vision in the world of electronics is carried forward by Adriano's son, Roberto, who, together with his father, the Italo-Chinese computer engineer Mario Tchou (who will become the technical manager of the project), and Riccardo Berla, head of personnel, will be the core team driving "the dream of the future."

The company starts by creating a small group of experts, each of whom is responsible for different aspects necessary to achieve the production of an electronic computer. A project that, as Adriano realizes, is not short-term: the team needs to be free to work and experiment for 5-7 years without expecting immediate results.

«We operated with the full trust of the company – Roberto Olivetti recounted further – with the sole obligation to report on the work done in the long term. We received an absolute delegation of powers, full trust, which is an essential element for working in a pioneering sector.».

The first step in the sector, Olivetti achieves this in 1952, when it opens a research laboratory on electronic calculators in New Canaan, United States., "duplicated" then in Pisa three years later.

The real turning point starts with Tchou, in 1956, which pushes the Ivrea company to experimenting with solid-state electronic components – diodes and transistors – which will soon become essential for electronics and telecommunications. Until that moment, electronic circuits were made with thermionic valves, but the invention of the transistor was about to revolutionize the market, and all the world's largest manufacturers were looking for ways to leverage the new technology to launch commercially appealing products.

First Roberto, then Adriano get involved in the dream and the challenge begins.

After the necessary study phase, serious production began in 1957 with the founding of SGS, Società generale semiconduttori (now STMicroelectronics), created in partnership with Telettra, a company by Virgilio Florani engaged in the telecommunications sector.

One year later, the first prototype produced by SGS arrives: theElea 9003, the first Italian electronic computer, a design gem designed by Ettore Sottsass, then marketed in 1959. The Elea (ELaboratore Elettronico Automatico) is among the first – if not the first – transistor-based computers produced in series, worldwide. For comparison, Olivetti managed to complete the challenge six months before IBM.

The first Personal Computer in history is Italian

Adriano Olivetti understands that the sector is an opportunity for development, not only for his company. The challenge of electronics is "a goal that will lead to the “common progress – economic, social, ethical – of the entire community”, explain the same entrepreneur presenting the Elea 9003.

Also in 1959, Olivetti acquires the Underwood, a US company with 11,000 employees, to which father Camillo was inspired for the establishment of his factory in Ivrea. The new subsidiary will have to be entirely converted to the electronics and information technology sectors.

Adriano Olivetti's dream is abruptly interrupted by his tragic death. It is February 27, 1960, on the train from Milan to Lausanne he is struck by a cerebral thrombosis. A few months later, Tchou will also face an untimely death, on November 9, 1961, in a car accident.

Olivetti loses two giants, but his son Roberto will continue along the path laid out, until reaching another important milestone. It is engineer Pier Giorgio Perotto who leads the new team dedicated to electronics. 

The same Perotto reported thatbetween the end of '62 and the beginning of '64 born in his minda dream: a machine capable of performing complex calculations, but “whose use was accessible to everyone and not just a few specialists". To achieve this, this new calculator had to “above all, to be inexpensive and not differ in size from other office products to which people had long been accustomed.

Perotto does not know it yet, but his dream is that of a Personal Computer. A vision that will be realized with the Programma 101, considered the first PC in history, fifteen years ahead of the innovations introduced by Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.

Programma 101 is launched in New York on October 14, 1965, and will achieve enormous success. There was no other computer in the world that had such computing power concentrated in such small dimensions.

NASA immediately orders 45: they will assist the Agency's experts in calculating the trajectory of the first Apollo mission, the same one that a few years later will take Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the Moon.

Read also: The first "fast connection" in history brought man to the Moon 

The Programma 101 is also requested by the television channel NBC, which will use it to calculate the election results of the New York and New Jersey areas.

Just under two years after the presentation, Hewlett Packard (better known as HP) will pay Olivetti 900,000 dollars, for having used the technology of Programma 101 (covered by patent) in its new HP 9100. The demonstration that once again, that great "challenge of the future" had been won by the company founded in Ivrea in 1908.