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Romano Volta (born 15th February 1937) is an Italian businessman, Executive Chairman and founder of Datalogic, an Italian company manufacturing barcode readers, mobile computers, radio-frequency identification, sensors for detection, measurement and safety, vision and laser marking systems.

Early life
Born in Bologna, Romano Volta graduated in Electronic Engineering with 100/100 cum laude at the University of Bologna.

In the early 70s, after a period as a professor at the technical Institute Aldini Valeriani, Eng. Volta was junior assistant to professor Giuseppe Evangelisti at the University of Bologna, at the heart of what is known as the "Packaging Valley" where there is the greatest concentration in Italy of companies producing packaging machines. Professor Evangelisti was asked by some entrepreneurs to develop electronic optical devices in order to automate specific verification processes such as the centering of brands on packaging, the positioning of print, or the presence of a tablet in a blister pack.

Romano Volta was put in charge of this task and began to develop a new device called "color mark reader", capable of detecting slight differences in contrast on packaging material, which is still installed today in all packaging machines.

His ability to combine optics with electronic, providing check processing and verification equipment, electronically integrated to the machine in a unique solution, quickly made Romano Volta well known in the sector. “Datalogic Optic Electronics” was born.

Some years later, with the introduction of the system of tagging all consumer products with bar codes, Romano Volta began the development of the special optical devices that became known as bar code readers - the journey into Automatic Data Capture and Industrial Automation had begun.

Datalogic
Having started the development of bar code readers, Romano Volta left the position at the University of Bologna, to focus on his business initiative. He transferred from a small laboratory to a proper factory, based in Lippo di Calderara, near Bologna airport. In 1972, Datalogic was officially founded.

In 1974 at a Marsh supermarket in Troy, Ohio, a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum was the first retail product sold using the world's first counter-top scanner, the Magellan Model-A (now exposed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.) by PSC, a company later acquired by Datalogic.

In the 80's Datalogic imposed herself as one of the major European companies for industrial applications, manufacturing the first industrial scanner in 1978. Eng. Volta’s Datalogic also pioneered the designing of baggage handling systems for airports - installing the first scanner at Milan's Linate Airport in 1984.

Today Datalogic is an international company, quoted on the STAR segment of the Italian Stock Exchange as DAL.MI. since 2001.

Other offices
He is President of Aczon Srl, a company founded in 2001 operating in the field of pharmaceutical research, biotechnology and oncology, and Chairman of Hydra S.p.A, an industrial holding company owned by the Volta family and majority shareholder of Datalogic S.p.A, with interests in the real estate and financial fields.

From September 1998 to October 2004 he served as President of the Associazione Industriali (Industrial Association) of Bologna, and he's been member of the Board of Directors of San Paolo IMI Fondi Chiusi SGR S.p.A.


 * Member of the Confindustria National Council
 * Member and Deputy Chairman of the Steering Committee of the Cassa di Risparmio Foundation in Bologna
 * Vice President of the Emilia-Romagna group of the Cavalieri del Lavoro
 * Member of the Advisory Council of the Johns Hopkins University of Bologna
 * Member of the Board of Directors of the Guglielmo Marconi International Fellowship Foundation
 * Member of the Board of Directors of IMA S.p.A in Ozzano dell'Emilia (BO), a company operating in pharmaceutical packaging machines
 * President of the "Electrotechnical and electronic production" section of Unindustria (Industrialist and Enterprises Association) Bologna.

From 1st June, 2018 he is President of the Confindustria Emilia "Electronics and Mechatronics" supply chain for the four-year period 2018-2022.

Awards and acknowledgements
On 29th May, 1997 he was awarded the title of "Cavaliere del Lavoro" by the President of the Italian Republic.

According to Harvard Business Review, in 2016 Romano Volta was at the 48th place in the list of the most performing Italian CEO s.

Personal life
Romano Volta is married, with three children. In the sports field, he held Fortitudo Basket as President in the 1998-99 season. He is passionate about boating and skiing.