Julian Melchiorri
Internationally known for his visionary ‘’Man-made Leaf’’ technologies, Melchiorri proposes radical environmental solutions for industrial and urban settings through an innovative exploitation of biotechnologies, robotics and materials to convert waste and pollution into valuable resources.
Julian is the founder and CEO of Arborea, a biochemical technology company based at Imperial Innovations and part of the European Institute of Technology Climate-KIC Accelerator. Julian was the first Engineer in Residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London sponsored by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, winner of the prestigious LDF '17 Emerging Talent Medal sponsored by British Land, of the Material Innovation Fellowship '17 from the Clothworkers Foundation, Best Innovation Award from Innovation RCA, he is a TEDx speaker and finalist at INDEX Design Award '15. He has taken part in major events and conferences, including the UN Goal 9 at London's City Hall, World Economic Forum '16, Global Design Forum '17, Venice Biennale '15, CNN Green Champions, Downtown Dubai, London Design Festival and ARS Electronica.
Earlier in his career, Melchiorri designed and engineered both products and manufacturing processes for a major Italian lighting company and for the London high-tech collective ‘’Random International’’, making technology-driven interactive experiments and massive scale installations, utilizing a multitude of technologies such as robotic, sensing and hydraulic technologies.
Melchiorri subsequently enrolled in a Master of Science from Imperial College of London and a Master of Arts from Royal College of Arts called "Innovation Design Engineering" program. Over this period, Melchiorri cultivated his interest and skills in biotechnology, biomimicry and biomaterials through intensive laboratory experimentation aiming to harness nature’s efficient technologies to solve major environmental and social issues.
Over the last century, our constantly growing population is burning fossil fuels and destroying plant life, basically forcing a change in the atmosphere and climate, reverse-terraforming our planet; while world's population is constantly growing, the availability for resources such as food, energy and water are decreasing. Having this constant issues in mind, Melchiorri founded Arborea, a biochemical technology company where scientists and engineers makes revolutionizing "Bionic Leaf" technologies to produce sustainable materials while cleaning-up the atmosphere from CO2. Arborea's mission is to help solve resource scarcity and global warming on a massive scale by utilizing the oldest and most important chemical process on Earth, photosynthesis.
