Gianfranco Zaccai, FIDSA, B.Arch'78, Hon'15, was the founder and past president of Continuum, an international multidisciplinary innovation by design consultancy, which he founded in 1983 as the first fully integrated, human centered research, design and development consultancy in the world.
In December of 2018 Gianfranco launched the Foundation for Augmented Intelligence (Intelligence++) which seeks to stimulate innovation to assist people with intellectual disabilities, their families and caregivers and society in general to improve quality of life while lowering overall cost and complexity.
He is known for championing a holistic and highly integrated approach to innovation research, design and development. This vision has resulted in the design and development of many highly successful products that have gone on to define their category, from the Reebok "Pump," to Procter & Gamble’s breakthrough Swiffer™ waterless cleaning system. With development of the "Pump," Gianfranco set the stage for a new "experiential" movement in design, now widely embraced, to move the designer out of the loft and into the world of people; the consumer and other takeholders, even before product or service development begin.
Gianfranco was engaged in several strategic engagements with the Herman Miller Company resulting in the Exclave System for workplace collaboration, and, in healthcare, the Compass System for patient and exam rooms and the Nala Patient Chair. The Metaform Trans-generational Personal Hygiene System developed in1990, though never produced, set a new vision for systems to facilitate independence for people with disabilities and their extended families. One of his proudest moments was the development of the Insulet Omnipod, the first discreet wearable and disposable Insulin Pump which has enhanced the quality of life of many diabetic children and a version is now used to deliver chemotherapy to cancer patients in their home.
Gianfranco holds degrees in Industrial Design from Syracuse University and in Architecture from The Boston Architectural College. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from North Carolina State University, Syracuse University and the Boston Architectural College.
Gianfranco has taught at the SDA Bocconi School of Management in Milan, Italy, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and the Boston Architectural College (BAC) in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He has lectured and conducted workshops at the Samsung Innovative Design Lab (IDS) in Seoul, Korea, for the Korea Institute of Industrial Design Promotion (KIDP), the Design Management Institute, the Corporate Design Foundation, the Danish Design Council, MIT’s Product Design Class in its School of Engineering and the Sloan School of Management, Cornell University’s Johnson School of Management, Harvard Business School, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, Syracuse University, The University of the Arts, Rhode Island School of Design, Tufts University, the University of North Carolina, the Fashion Institute of Technology New York, the University of Louisiana, the Politecnico di Milano, the University of Padova, and the University of Pescara, in Italy, the Nanyang Technological University, the Tamasek Polytechnic Institute in Singapore, and the Australian Academy of Design . He has spoken at international conferences and workshops in Finland, Sweden, South Africa, Uruguay, Brazil, Denmark, Italy, India, Ireland, Japan, China, Korea, Mexico, Columbia, Chile and the UK.
Gianfranco has been published in leading professional journals, including Design Management Journal; IDSA Innovation; World Class Design to Manufacturer, in the UK; and the Danish Design Council. His designs have been showcased in publications and exhibitions including "Design in Plastics," "Product Design 1” and "Product Design 3," and the Product Design Exhibition at Katonah Gallery, The Danish Design Center, and the Cooper Hewitt Museum in New York. In addition, his work has been featured in such books as New American Design by Hugh Aldersey Williams and New & Notable Product Design II by Robert Blaich. Zaccai has been a contributor to BusinessWeek. Gianfranco has won Awards for Design Excellence from ID: Industrial Design Magazine and the Industrial Designers Society of America, including a special "Design of The Decade" award for long-term success in the market. In addition, he received the Compasso d'Oro from Associazione del Disegno Industriale (ADI); the iF Seal of Excellence from the iF Industrie Forum Design in Hannover, Germany; the Premio SMAU Industrial Design Award from Smau, Milan, Italy; the Special Theme Prize of the 1994 Nagaoka Shinanogawa Technopolis International Design Competition (Japan); the Apex (American Product Excellence) Award; and a Presidential Award for Design Excellence from President Clinton for the Egis Explosives Detection System. In 2011, Gianfranco and Continuum received the National Design Award for Product Design by the Cooper Hewitt Museum of the Smithsonian and First Lady Michelle Obama.
He is a Fellow of IDSA, the Industrial Designers Society of America, and a past Northeast District Vice President, and Chairman of the IDSA Design Awards Jury, Business Week’s IDEA Awards and ID Magazine’s Annual Design Review. Gianfranco also served on juries for the Korean Industrial Design Awards, the Japan Industrial Design Prize (JIDPO), and the Braun Prize in Germany. He is past president of the International Design Conference in Aspen (IDCA) and co-produced the organization’s conference "Bare Bones - Doing More With Less." Gianfranco served on the Board of Directors of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID). He has led and participated in ICSID Workshops in Mexico, Columbia, Brazil, Finland and South Africa. In 2001, Gianfranco organized and chaired the IDSA National Conference “Designing Your Life” in Boston. He was Chair of DMI, the Design Management Institute. Gianfranco was a key member of the Global Design Advisory Board for Samsung Electronics Corporation in Seoul, South Korea, and helped to transform the Samsung Design and Innovation process. In 2017, Gianfranco served as Chair of the World Design Organization (WDO) Jury which selected Lille Metropole as the 2020 World Design Capital.
Born in Trieste, Italy, Gianfranco and his family immigrated to the US at the height of the Cold War and settled in upstate New York.
In 2009, he was inducted as a Commander of the Order Merit of the Italian Republic (Commendatore, Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana”) by the President of Italy.