Dear Academic Authorities, Dear Colleagues I am very happy and it is a big honour for me, as the president of GRIN, the association of more than eight hundreds professors of computer science in italian universities, to give to Ugo Montanari the warmest congratulations of our community in the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. I am happy since Ugo is one of our more outstanding members, one we are most proud of, for the excellent scientific results obtained in so many areas. He is certainly an example for everybody, and above at all for younger people entering right now a research career, as it was for me in the first eighties. And there is also a personal happiness for me today, since in the first eighties I was an absolute beginner and Ugo was already a first class scientist, with significant contributions to many areas of computer science. Hence to be here today in this role, in Pisa, the "alma mater" of italian computer science, this is something that is beyond my wildest dreams of twenty-five years ago. My background is in algorithmics, so I want just to recall here - hoping not to spoil what will be said later on today - that his unification algorithm for resolution of logic programs, a result co-authored with Alberto Martelli, is something I consider one of the most important contributions of informatics to the current scientific culture. If we shall ever have truly intelligent devices, able to rationally analyze complex problems and to identify the desired solution, their result will be one of the foundation stones. In this respect their result is in the same gallery as another gem contributed by italian computer scientists, I mean the Boehm-Jacopini theorem on structured programs, one of the foundation stones on which software engineering is basing in its aim of reaching the reliability and predictability of other more traditional engineering disciplines. And I cite these two gems since these are just two examples of facts we should continuously be speaking about to the general public, like scientists in other areas correctly do every day: how nice are the things you find once you break the atom or enter the cell or combine molecules or observe ants. This is absolutely important to reverse the decline of the image of computer science in the general public. Ugo Montanari is an example for all of us also under this respect, since just a couple of years ago he accepted to author a book about telling teen-agers how is like to be a computer scientist. His effort is just a first stone, to be accompanied by many others if we want to obtain tangible effects. If you go to any bookstore there are tens of dissemination books in mathematics, physics, biology, any major scientific area. Books about computers are in an entirely different section of the shop, and tell you how to learn internet or the spreadsheet or the word processor if you are so dumb you cannot figure it out yourself, on one side, or how to learn to do esoteric and horribly complicated things by using a computer, no normal person would really care about, on the other side. So if a teen ager walks in a bookstore browsing titles and considering which area of science she could possibly study what will catch her attention ? And after a politician walks in the same bookstore what image of the science of computers will form in her mind and how high will computer science be in her political agenda ? So I conclude with an invitation to everybody to consider Ugo Montanari as an example showing "how to do it" also from the science dissemination point of view. Above at all my invitation is to people that are in their maturity and have received so much joy by doing research in computer science. Give back some of your enthusiasm to society, writing at the dissemination level for the general public about the nice and interesting results you have found or have read about in your career. This will be a very important service to the entire community and maybe the best investment to ensure a good career, in the academy or in the industry, to your students. Once again, the warmest congratulations of our community to Ugo Montanari and thank you for your attention.