Would you like to live in a world where there are no jobs to do, where everything is done by living machines, and where human beings are free from work?

This is the world imagined in 1920 by the Czech author Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. that will be performed by the students from the Trieste Secondary School "G. Corsi".

The one-hour performance takes place next Wednesday, 9 March 2016, in ICTP's Budinich Lecture Hall at 12:00 and at 17:30. The play is in Italian with English subtitles.

Several ICTP staff members and scientists will be joining the student performers aged 12-13, including:

- Tarig Mahgoub Hassan Abdelgadir

- Sananda Biswas

- Alaa Aly Elsayed Aly Elshorbagy

- Najmeh Foroozani

- Ali Hassanali

- Valerio Cappellini

- Muhammad Iqbal

- Gordana Omanovic

The show's original text is inspired by the play R.U.R. standing for Rossum’s Universal Robots (where Rossum is a wordplay with the Czech word for "reason"). Karel Čapek's play, in which the word "robot" is invented, came nearly a century in advance of many currently relevant topics: artificial intelligence, biotechnologies, losing jobs to robots, and the moral and social implications of widespread robot use. ICTP scientists enriched the script with personal reflections on the frontiers of science.

You are most welcome to attend any of the two performances.

We hope to see you there!