Fellow
Giovanni Garifo graduated in 2019 with a Master’s degree in Software Engineering from Politecnico di Torino, where his thesis titled “Deep Learning on Academic Knowledge Graphs” demonstrated the application of advanced deep learning algorithms for Knowledge Graph embeddings and semantic web technologies to develop a recommendation system for the academic community.
In January 2017, Giovanni joined the Nexa Center for Internet & Society after obtaining his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from Politecnico di Torino. At Nexa, he initially served as IT Manager and Software Developer. He was the Lead Software Developer for the Geranium project, an innovative search engine designed to explore the academic community of Politecnico di Torino using Semantic Web and Deep Learning technologies.
Giovanni is also the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Column, a startup founded in 2019 that operates in the news media sector. Column, based in Turin and incubated at the Innovative Companies Incubator of the Polytechnic University of Turin (I3P), focuses on providing personalized, high-quality news experiences. Under his leadership, Column leverages cutting-edge technologies, particularly in Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing, to deliver a tailored approach to news consumption.
As Nexa’s former IT Manager & Software Engineer (2017-2025), Giovanni oversaw the IT infrastructure, ensuring efficient and seamless operations. His responsibilities extended to managing the Nexa Center’s activities, crafting project proposals, and assessing the technical aspects of grant applications. Notably, Giovanni contributed significantly to the CLIKC project, an Erasmus+ initiative that concluded in September 2023. The project focused on developing an AI-based adaptive learning platform. Giovanni’s role involved defining project deliverables, coordinating backend development, and integrating the latest AI and NLP technologies into the adaptive learning algorithm. In addition, he participated in a collaboration with PagoPA S.p.A. and the Nexa Center, aimed at estimating the economic value of Open Source software. His contributions included developing a replicable methodology and a software pipeline based on multiple stages for dependency mapping, source code retrieval, development cost calculation based on a quantitative model, and estimation of dependencies usage.
His main research interests lie in natural language processing and machine learning applied to semantic graphs. For more information about his projects and research, please visit his GitHub and ORCID profile.