A celebration in honor of Emanuele Biondi on the occasion of his 80-th birthday was held in the Department of Electronics and Information (Milano) on March 1, 2008. Biondi was the Director of the System Theory Center of the National Research Council of Italy (CNR) located within the Politecnico di Milano for about 20 years, starting from 1971. He was also among the chief promoters of the Bioengineering Department of the Politecnico di Milano, founded in 1990.