Founder & Director
Innovation Design Lab

Pio Barone Lumaga is a technologist focused on the sustainability of social enterprise. In a four decades-long practice in Africa, Europe & North America he has successfully brought to the market hundreds of state-of-art products and services.

Since 2015, as professor at Namibia University of Science and Technology, he is the founder & director of the Innovation Design Lab, a center of cross-disciplinary research applied to Namibian wicked problems. At the Lab he is developing the second prototype of a Solar Electric Taxi, a solar still desalinators, a micro-irrigation technology, a water purification system with ‘green’ chemistry, and Hydrogen cell whilst fostering a new generation of African researchers and entrepreneurs.

As entrepreneur, CEO, managing & creative director has led a variety of companies to success: Art & Technology, Kinnasand, Snowcrash in Sweden & Germany, Artek in Finland, Bruce Mau in Canada, KohBarone Innovation in the USA, Studio De Lucchi, Produzione Privata, Danese, & EIS –Italian Software Publishing House- in Italy. As innovator has shaped new generations of services & products— from banks to computers, from children’s creative games to lighting, from shoes to ultra-light catamarans, from concept cars to museums, from acoustic textiles to eco-efficient architectures. As chief designer, creative director, project leader, or consultant has collaborated with Arla, Artemide, BMW, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bahn, Electrolux, Fiat, Findus, Hermés, Husqvarna, IKEA, Mandarina Duck, Nobia, Pernod Ricard, Philips, Olivetti, Raichle, Snickers Workwear, TNT, Umbra, Vibram, & cultural institutions such as Centre G. Pompidou, Danese Foundation, Groninger Museeum, Kodomoshiro, Museo de la Biodiversidad de Panama, Réunion des Musée Nationaux, Triennale di Milano, Tällberg Foundation, & Vitra Design Museum.

He has studied, researched or collaborated with institutions such as University of Naples, University of Milan, Bocconi University in Italy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT Media Lab Boston, Stanford School of Engineering Berkeley, & UCLA Los Angeles in USA.

With MSc in Civil engineering, post-graduate degree in Environmental engineering, and a Gemini Entrepreneur Fellowship is fluent in English, Spanish, French, Swedish; Italian is his mother tongue. He lives & works in Windhoek, Namibia & in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2015, he has been appointed Commander of the Order of the Italian Star for his contribution to innovation and design.