### Benedetta Piantella

Benedetta Piantella is a designer turned humanitarian technologist. She has taught Lego robotics and worked for Arduino in Italy, and Smart Design in NYC, producing interactive prototypes for high-end clients. She has founded engineering R&D companies focused on producing sustainable solutions to humanitarian, social, environmental challenges worldwide. She has built partnerships with organizations such as the UN, UNICEF, The Millennium Villages Project, Universities such as NYU, Columbia and Princeton and multiple NGOs and has designed, prototyped and deployed projects in countries such as Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. She recently covered the position of Technology Architect for the Earth Institute and the Sustainable Engineering Lab at Columbia University, she is an Open Source advocate and is currently a full-time faculty member at NYU-ITP where she teaches Physical Computing and Engineering for Development.