About me
jesse_400x400Jesse Marsh obtained his BA in Fine Arts at Williams College (USA) in 1975; with the Hubbard Hutchinson Fellowship he moved to Milan to work in the studio of Marco Zanuso, one of the fathers of the Italian school of industrial design, and later as a free-lance designer. In fifteen years of professional activity, he confronted a range of technologies, processes and product sector, from chairs to artificial lungs, and received numerous patents and awards. In the late 1980s his interest shifted to ICT, participating since then in the research teams of over 35 collaborative international projects funded by the European Union. In different consultancy roles first in Milan and since 1995 in Palermo, he worked in learning technologies and teleworking to then broaden his scope to include the relation between the information society and sustainable development, cultural diversity, e-commerce and democratic participation. Recently his interest has further broadened to include issues related to cultural heritage, spatialplanning and local development, working with local authorities in Sicily and with different Departments of the Regional Government, as well as initiatives in areas such as Smart Cities, IoT, Digital Social Innovation, and Open Data. Over the last five years, he has been an active member of the Living Lab movement, proposing a user-driven “co- design” approach to ICT R&D and innovation and regional development policies in general. He is the founder and coordinator of the Territorial Living Lab TLL-Sicily, a member of the ENoLL (European Network of Living Labs) since 2007, and has been Special Advisor to the President of ENoLL since 2009. In that context, he is also an advisor to the City of Palermo for its Open Data and Smart City strategies and to the Sicilian Region (under contract with Formez) for the role of Social Innovation and Open Data in the regional Digital Agenda and Smart Specialisation Strategies 2014-2020.