Image of Gregory N.  Polletta
Jury

Gregory N. Polletta
Founder
iGNITIATE

NEW YORK, USA // Gregory Polletta is the founder of iGNITIATE, an international award winning innovation strategy and industrial design firm that specialises in disruptive design – the art and science of creating new and innovative products and services that can transform a product category, shake up a market, and ensure international firms’ continued success. He is also the co-founder of the internationally award winning design brand gregorysung.

Polletta is a creative, academic and corporate talent whose work crosses the boundaries of engineering, industrial design, art, R&D, and entrepreneurship. Ranging over a broad field of outputs that encompasses the artistic as well as the practical and scientific, he has made a career of producing work that startles, gets the job done and continually pushes boundaries. In his corporate work, he and his team bridge the gap between research and profitability, digging into R&D labs to uncover ideas that can be developed into winning offerings for clients such as Fujitsu, Louis-Vuitton, Pfizer, and many more, where he has brought his talents for high-tech R&D commercialisation and design to bear.

A true 21st century Renaissance man, Polletta’s designs span many fields, including architecture (where he and his team have designed eye-catching facades for buildings under renovation), medical technology, computer memory devices, mobile phone software, furniture design, artificial lighting, object design, consumer product packaging, and more. He is currently writing a book detailing the intersection of design, business, and engineering, and the necessity of embracing all three disciplines simultaneously and specifically in order to create sustained marketplace breakthroughs.

Polletta received a Master in Design with commendation, Domus Academy Milan, Italy and a BS in Information Systems as part of the Engineering for Manufacturing program, University of Connecticut, United States, with a concentration in Medieval Society at Selwyn College, Cambridge University, UK. He lectures to universities, corporations, governments, and organizations worldwide on the topics of design, deign thinking, innovation, R&D commercialization, entrepreneurialism, industrial design and new product development.

He is the creator of The iGNITE Convergence Program in 2005, the worlds 1st integrated, design, engineering for new product development, innovation and entrepreneurship program. In 2014 he was named the Most Inspirational Professor in the Doctoral Program – designed for Elite Engineering PhD. Students at École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, the oldest engineering school in the world and one of France’s most prestigious institutions.

Featured in numerous publications globally Polletta and his team’s many design and product development breakthroughs include TOPIADE, the worlds first 3D scanning, image overlay, image projection, and fully articulated moving pin facade design, a synergy between architecture and digital platform that combines digital, sculptural and architectural innovation, the first time we’ve ever seen anything like this from a technology standpoint actually coming up with a new art form and completed in 2006 for Louis Vuitton. Also, equally important are his design of the 3D laser metal printed REUTPALA, the permanent award for the World Retail congress given to Alberto Alessi as a lifetime achievement award for design and retail as profiled in Core 77.

He has served as a board member, board of advisor member and investor to nonprofit and for profit firms throughout Europe and the US. Polletta has been a past Designer in Residence at True Start & True Capital Venture Capital focusing on consumer products and retail, has been a keynote speaker and designer for the World Retail Congressas well as Chairman of the Global Leadership Summit and a 2017 Candidate for the US Presidential Innovation Fellows Program at the White House.