Politecnico di Milano hosted the #KoM of the #PRIN2017 project FIRST. Partners from the most prominent Italian optical communication research groups joined for the first time. We started the activities aimed at providing a revolutionary approach based on Space-division multiplexing #SDM on few-mode fibers (FMFs) and multi-core fibers (MCFs) deployed in L’Aquila. The results of #FIRST will provide the ultimate demonstration of SDM transmission, well out of reach of lab experiments relying on spooled fibers. #Photonics