15 Minute Break: The Big Questions of Our Time, in the Pause Between Classes

Why study when Artificial Intelligence seems to have all the answers? How much can the words used to describe us shape our professional future? Why does one euro buy less today than it did yesterday? Is a great idea really where innovation begins? Are brands helping define who we are? Can data mislead us? And what happens when sustainability and profit come into conflict?

These are some of the questions at the heart of 15 Minute Break, Bocconi University’s new video podcast series, which takes conversations between students and faculty beyond the classroom and turns them into an open discussion of the major issues of our time. The first episode will be available online on October 7 on YouTube and leading audio platforms, followed by a new episode every two weeks.

A Coffee, a Sofa and a Good Question

The concept draws on an everyday feature of university life: the academic quarter-hour, the break between two classes. Fifteen minutes, a sofa, a coffee and, above all, a question to start from.

In each episode, a student meets a Bocconi faculty member and challenges them on a topic related to their teaching or research, starting from a doubt, a curiosity or a provocative question with a direct connection to younger generations and their everyday lives. Meanwhile, other students listen, observe, have a coffee and join in with further questions.

It is also a way of exploring what it means to study at university today: not simply acquiring knowledge, but learning to question reality, compare different perspectives and develop the tools needed to understand change. A question that arises during a class can therefore continue beyond the classroom, turn into a discussion and open up new perspectives.

From AI to Sustainability: The Questions of the First Season

The first season spans a variety of disciplines and fields of research, while always starting from the same point: a simple, immediate question through which to address a complex issue.

With Dirk Hovy, Artificial Intelligence becomes an opportunity to ask what it really means to know something and what value a university offers in a world where information is increasingly accessible. Alessandra Casarico, meanwhile, addresses gender inequalities in the labor market, showing how words, stereotypes and biases can affect professional trajectories.

Economics provides the starting point for questions about inflation and purchasing power with Donato Masciandaro, tariffs and trade wars with Gianmarco Ottaviano, and the role of expectations in economic cycles with Guido Alfani. Silvia Zamboni challenges the myth of the great idea as the sole driver of innovation, while Graziella Romeo starts from constitutional law to reflect on what makes a constitution and a democracy resilient.

Marketing and the relationship between brands, identity and values are at the heart of the conversation with Stefano Prestini; Pieralberto Guarniero shows why even accurate data can lead to the wrong conclusions when taken out of context; and Nilanjana Dutt explores the tension between sustainability and profit, as well as the conditions needed for environmental goals to translate into genuine business transformation.

Finally, Hannes Wagner takes us behind the scenes of finance to explore who really holds power in large corporations and how AI could change the role of those who decide where capital is invested. Rector Francesco Billari, meanwhile, looks to the future from the perspective of young people: what does it mean to become an adult in an aging society, amid declining birth rates, new inequalities and life choices that are becoming increasingly difficult to plan?