Following the extension necessary to allow for the widest possible participation, we remind you that the deadline for submitting the application for teams to participate in the AIAthon – “Angelo Farina” Award for Innovation in Acoustics is October 2nd.

We remind you that the industrial partner of this first edition is ASK Industries, and the proposed challenge is incredibly stimulating: “What if sound didn’t need speakers?”

A challenge open to the most curious minds in acoustics: rethinking from scratch how sound can be generated—without membranes, without voice coils, without the limitations of a technological era over a century old.
Traditional loudspeaker technology is based on an unchanged principle: a membrane vibrating in air. Despite decades of improvements—new materials (carbon fiber, neodymium, samarium-cobalt), CAD/FEM design, advanced acoustic loadings (bass reflex, waveguides, line arrays)—the basic paradigm has remained the same. Integrating these systems into confined spaces, from concert halls to car interiors, requires significant tradeoffs: complex signal processing, high electrical power, and expensive engineering solutions. As part of AIAthon 2026, AIA and ASK are asking you to propose ideas that combine vision, technical rigor, and the desire to challenge a consolidated paradigm to try to go “beyond the loudspeaker.”

To learn more, you can watch the “challenge” posed by Davide Malacalza of ASK in this VIDEO .

📢 If you’re under 35, have an innovative spirit, but above all, a mind that thinks in frequencies, and the desire to make your mark in a field that hasn’t changed in a century—now is the time.

All the details and the registration link are at : AIAthon