He has an MS in environmental engineering (1993) and a PhD in Hydraulic Engineering (1997), both from Politecnico di Milano, Italy. He is specialized in geographic information systems and environmental data management with a track record of numerous of research and engineering projects spanning from local to international scales. Since 2006 he has started to develop a series of original projects, which have been considered very creative, in the sectors of culture and territorial promotion. He works primarily in four languages (Italiano, English, French, and Portuguese) and has always a priority on multicultural and social impact aspects in his activities. Below is a list of some of his main projects.
“Engineering” projects
Among others:
- he was part of the design team of the largest remediation wetland in Europe, 100 hectares in Fusina, south of Venice,
- he has managed utility surveys in large industrial facilities (e.g. Porto Torres, in Sardinia)
- he has provided GIS and data management support to studies on contaminated site remediation in Italy (e.g. Campiano, Tuscany) and abroad (e.g. industrial landfill in Lauterbourg, France).
- he has worked on several projects in the tourism sector (between 2016 and 2025 he was part of the design and implementation team for about 2000 km of hikes and trails in Tuscany).
- He has designed and managed the fast-track georeferencing of about 10000 garbage collection points in the provinces of Grosseto, Siena e Arezzo (to support the subject which is currently providing the waste collection service in Southern Tuscany).
In his capacity as an engineer and a researcher he has been invited in various occasions to provide support to policies, regulations, and governance reviews, including research ethics. E.g., he has collaborated with the European Commision as a facilitator for the development of the INSPIRE Directive on spatial data infrastructures, and as an expert in the definition of the EU position with respect to the Digital Earth initiative (2010).
Creative and innovative projects
Since 2006 he started to develop a line of work which was initially considered “out of the box” of this STEM career, although the same activities are today fully integrated in his engineering and research work:
- he wrote the script for a horror movie, The Revenge of the Killer Chihuahua and of the Zombies, which was the co-produced with Lucio Monocrom as a director. The production involved aroun 35 people and five location around Milan, Italy (2006-2007)
- he organized the mission of a crew of twenty players of an ancient ball game from Southern Tuscany to Chicago, Illinois (2007)
- he launched in 2008 a citizen science project on light pollution and night sky quality monitoring (BuioMetria Partecipativa), preceded by m(‘)appare Milano, a crowd-mapping campaign of the city
- During the first lockdown (March-May 2020), he designed and managed the Participatory Lithology project (with 20 participants from five Italian regions)
- In 2024 he launched the first national survey of hand-made crochet Christmas trees (the second survey will be out soon).
- With the stage name Jack O’Malley, in 2017 he started, with Dario Canal, Simone Sandrucci and Wolfgang Scheibe, the Jug Band dalle Colline Metallifere, an international and inter-generational project combining music and territorial promotion, including four tours in Germany, over a hundred events in Italy, and providing “musical facilitation” services.
- Counting from Spring 2007 he has organized, co-organized or supported many (at least 200) events on different scales (from small snacks in bars to multi-day festivals), including a mini-soccer match in Edinburgh
Pibinko’s creative projects have been frequently covered by Italian national media, including: RAI 3, RAI 2, RAI Radio 2, Radio 24, Radio Montecarlo, Topolino (Mickey Mouse magazine), La Stampa, Grazia, Radio Popolare Milano (just to mention the main ones, please see: https://www.pibinko.org/in-the-media/), and have received attention by international media. They have also received prizes and recognition (again, in Italy, and internationally).
The uni*rural* projects
Most projects developed since 2007 have been based in marginal rural areas. This has led to develop a line of work which is not, in fact, oriented to promote rurality as a bucolic enviroment or as an escape destination for city dwellers, but to contribute to the creation of a new awareness on the relationship between cities and countryside..
Most of these projects have started in Souther Tuscany. However, this was not done with a logico of “local promotion”. Rather, this area for the pibinko.org network is a sandbox for activities which have worked well for the Tuscan communities, but can easily be replicated annd adapted in other settings, ideally as a part of an exchange program, and not as an “export” activity.
As a consolidation of these activities, in October 2025 pibinko launched the uni*rural* project. This is a non-formal education course with six subjects (games, landscapes, arts, very-applied acoustics, physical education and “cynic” education). This will take place between December 2025 and June 2026, with various connections to universities, research institutions, and various local communities: https://www.unirural.org/en/project/.
For more information
- To know more about the services offered by pibinko and his network: https://www.pibinko.org/services
- To have an idea of the effects of these services: https://www.pibinko.org/effects-of-the-pibinko-org-network/
- If you are interested in “civic-environmental” engineering services with a synaesthetic approach: micalosapevo@pibinko.org or +3317539228
Photography and graphics credits
- header image: pibinko with some of his collaborators (left to right, Guimaraes, Dante, and Mauro Tirannosauro), plus various props (Nov. 2, 2025) -thanks to KJD.
- Logo: The fifth quadrant (created by pibinko in 2006)
- Middle photo: the Hungry March Band from Brooklyn in Cagliari, Sardinia, 2005, by pibinko
- third image: part of one of the “rural triptychs” by Wolfgang Scheibe, aka Tattistampa
