Franco Lodato is an accomplished and globally recognized creative leader. He has expansive success integrating nature-inspired design, human-centered innovation, and technical insight into design-driven solutions that result in meaningful and dynamic products that improve users' lives.
His comprehensive industry expertise includes corporate, startup, and design Consulting agencies across industries such as personal and health care, lifestyle and luxury, education, consumer electronics, and wearable and mobile technologies.
Lodato has extensive experience in complete concept to market products in physical and digital design in diverse contexts:
>> From home environments (Herman Miller and Gillette) to consumer-high tech (Motorola- Google) to high-end consulting (Pininfarina, Continuum).
>>He was recognized as “Master Innovator” at Motorola-Google and holds 80 U.S. and International invention patents, including the first wireless ECG, a multi-blade conformable razor (precursor to Gillette's Mach3), and the Motorola i833.
His academic assignments include Associate Professor at the University of Montreal School of Design, Designer in Residence at the University of South Florida, Visiting Lecturer at the MIT Media Laboratory, and Vice President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), Florida Chapter.
He is an executive member of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors and was appointed as a Research Associate at the Florida Institute of Human Machine Cognition ( IHMC) in 2017.
In 2019, he was a NASA Grant Recipient for “Mixed Reality Care-Delivery Guidance System to support medical event management on Long Duration Exploration Missions” in collaboration with Harvard Medical School, TRISH (Translational Research Institute for Space Health), and STRATUS center for medical Simulation, working with Dr. Steven J. Yule, Harvard Medical School.
Lodato is also a published author of Bionics in Action: The Design Work of Franco Lodato and a Ted Talk speaker, “What Woodpeckers, Sharks and Snakes Teach Us About Design.