Why Aethia is our name?

"aethia" is the scientific name of a kind of seagull that lives at low latitudes.

To us the seagull has always represented a good metaphor of what we try to do. As a matter of fact, at a technological level, using High Performance Computing systems means, in a sense, to try to equip oneselves with wings and take flight. But also at a company philosophy level, the seagull symbolises the values we care so much for, as described in this short passage of "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"(1973):

"Jonathan Livingston Seagull is not like the other gulls. He is a seagull that discovers the beauty of hovering in the sky, who is looking for perfection in flying because he believes flight has its own beauty. It does not want to follow the mass anymore, he refuses flock life, he does not want to fly just looking for food, he seeks a different ideal, an ideal of freedom, of spaces and blue skies, of heat and light, of a puff of wind and foaming sea. He wants to fight and to stand out, to obtain the things he believes in at the risk of not being understood by his fellows. In this way he becomes the symbol of who has the courage to follow their own internal rules without being affected by the others' prejudices.
This metaphor reflects the human condition, too often restricted by schemes and stilted roles, which do not leave room for imagination, aspiration or dreaming."