On 24 March 2026, we held a training day for students in their final three years at the Liceo Stendhal in Milan, hosted at the MAIRE offices in Milan, to discuss technologies for the energy transition and complexity in an accessible way, with the students at the heart of the discussion.

Energy transition explorers for a day: this was the experience enjoyed by 19 students from Years 11, 12 and 13 at the Stendhal French High School in Milan, who were our guests on 24 March 2026 at the Torri Garibaldi in Milan (the headquarters of the MAIRE Group) for a morning of training dedicated to making complex topics accessible.

The energy transition is often perceived as a huge, distant, technical issue. That is why we chose a different approach: not to explain it, but to bring it to life. We abandoned the traditional lecture format to give space to the young people and their creativity, and to encourage them to think and discuss, alongside us, the issues we addressed.

During the morning, we ‘put on trial’ (through the dynamics of debate) the very possibility of the energy transition, via a dialogue structured like a real trial. The technologies that our colleagues at MAIRE work on every day – sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs), carbon capture systems, methanol and hydrogen – became the playing field for navigating between evidence, myths, fake news and possible choices.

Students were asked to seek out information, evaluate it, identify inaccuracies and form an independent opinion on one of the most complex processes of our time: industrial decarbonisation.

Bringing these dynamics into the classroom means sending a clear message to young people: the future isn’t something you learn about, it’s something you build. And it’s built through curiosity, discussion and critical thinking – three essential ingredients for the ‘humanist engineers’ of tomorrow, whom we aim to educate through our training and guidance courses.

“I’ve seen students question sources, compare data and change their minds. Not because we asked them to, but because their curiosity led them to quickly develop a critical ability to discern research findings, thanks in part to the support of LLM tools”.

Here is a comment from Stefano Andreola, who taught the course alongside other colleagues from the MAIRE Group’s Hydrogen team; we would like to thank them all for passionately dedicating their time and expertise to these brilliant young students!

This year’s training day has strengthened the relationship between the Fondazione MAIRE– ETS and the Institute, building on the courses held at Stendhal French High School in Milan during the 2023/2024 and 2024/2025 academic years.

We hope to see you again soon!