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.
Presenting
GSM For Good
Open source cellular networks are happening - this talk will introduce a brief overview of what they are, how they work compared to a regular GSM cellular network and open source resources available to jump start one. Benedetta will also talk about how she got to using them and the class she developed at ITP called Towers of Power. She will also present some of the projects that have resulted from the class and some of the latest things she is working on.
